What’s worth killing someone over?

To most the question of what they would kill someone over results in a deep philosophical search with a reluctant answer. Rarely, however, does that reluctant answer conclude that the threshold should be at something like entering a beauty pageant. The DailyMail reports that “Katya Koren, 19, was found dead in a village in the Crimea region near her home.” Three young Muslims are suspected, one of whom is Bihal Gaziev who reportedly claimed that he had no regrets over Katya’s death because she violated Sharia law.

Stories like this cause me to reflect on what would cause individuals to think in this way. Is it the religion? Is it the culture? Certainly, there is a relationship between the two and in the United States, for example, culture appears to have watered down much of the otherwise cruel aspects of Christianity. Yet it is not some vague social yearning that seems to cause murders like this; the perpetrators point to the reasons they commit these crimes, and they are pointing to Sharia law and the Qur’an.

Also, strangely enough, events like beauty pageants have some feminists speaking out at how it objectifies women. It is so strange that in much of the Muslim world something arguably so objectifying, a beauty pageant, can be similar to Rosa Parks sitting on the front seat of a bus.