I would love to see this sort of survey carried out across the worldwide Muslim population. I’ve always known that the strictest practitioners are a minority, but I would naively expect them to be a larger minority overall than what your survey results show for Jordan. It would also be nice to understand why the majority let them carry on as they do. It makes it very hard for outsiders to resist painting all Muslims with the same brush.

I’m adding your book to my reading list.

What I think is that there are aspects of tribal society–not all of it, but aspects of it–that are just completely dysfunctional, even as they exist there, but certainly as they are exhibited in the West. The aspect that I would most like to see challenged from within is this notion of having to protect each other from the outside, no matter how egregious the in-group behavior might be.

For example, not so long ago, I conducted a nationwide attitude and opinion survey on dishonor killings in Jordan. Eighty-nine per cent of the people in my representative sample told me they would support stiffer penalties for dishonor killings in the country. (Currently, there are three penal code articles on the books that offer such leniency to the perpetrators that the average sentence is just six months.) This 89% figure has recently been validated in a second survey. This is good news. . .people do know right from wrong.

Nonetheless, there is a huge disconnect. This overwhelming majority of the population continues to look the other way when the minority commits these crimes. They will not go up against their leadership in any big way to insist that the laws are changed. Nor will they exert peer pressure on the minority to knock it off and quit giving the larger group a bad reputation. There is just a complacency and a willingness to protect their own that I don’t think you would see in some other societies.

We see the same phenomenon with some of the other issues you cite. . .the Prophet cartoons (Jordanians still haven’t let go of this. . .recently some have launched an effort to try to prosecute the cartoonists in Jordan, on the basis of God knows what international law), the terrorist activities, etc. While people may privately object to such violence, for some reason, they won’t take it to the next step and devise measures to take care of these problems on their own. You might see some dabbling, some half measures, but rarely anything results oriented. And yet they also don’t want outside interference. So it places people of conscience in a tough bind.

If I could change anything about the culture, it would be this aspect of it. I’d keep the hospitality, the generosity, the gift of gab, and much of the rest of it, but I’d like to see more pressure brought to bear on problems from within.

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”

http://www.reformislam.org/honorcide/