Young, vibrant and bubbly, YouTuber Tiba al-Ali became a hit with her fun-loving videos about her life.
She started her channel after moving from her native Iraq to Turkey at the age of 17 in 2017, talking about her independence, her fiancé, make-up and other things. Tiba appeared happy and attracted tens of thousands of subscribers.
This January she went back to Iraq to visit her family - and was murdered by her father. However, the killing was not considered to have been “pre-meditated” and her father was sentenced to only six months in prison.
Tiba’s death sparked protests across Iraq about its laws regarding so-called “honour killings”, the case highlighting how women are treated in a country where conservative attitudes remain dominant.
I’m sorry, but this is incredibly misleading. Islam’s definition of crimes that are punnishable by death includes things like apostasy. We shouldn’t pretend that changing one’s mind or disagreeing with a religion that was chosen for you is a crime.
I dated a non-observant Muslim girl who in college who kept my existence a secret because she was terrified of her father finding out she was dating a non-Muslim. Her father was “traditional” basically went to mosque on big holidays. But she was still absolutely madly panicked about him finding out about me.
Things I learned: a lot of ex-Muslims keep calling themselves Muslims because they’re afraid; a lot of “cultural Muslims” exist that are sort of like cultural Catholics — all the guilt, none of the belief; and that there isn’t really “progressive Islam” the way there is “progressive Christianity”—all flavors of modern islam that have enough adherents to matter are fundamentalist, it’s just a matter of degree. There’s no group of consequence that thinks the Koran is just a revered book or thinks that their way is but one of many to connect with the divine, etc.
I’ve known many tolerant Muslims. I’ve also known how afraid they have been of their families finding out how there tolerance informs their behavior, and how badly it works out for them when their families do find out.