ABSTRACT
Why are honour killings and honour-related violence (HRV) so important to understand? What do such crimes represent? And how does HRV fit in with Western views and perceptions of Islam? This book provides a collection of scholarly essays and research papers examining the concept of HRV against women in general and Muslim women in particular. This introduction outlines the main objectives and rationale of this book, and its contributions to both socio-legal understanding and public policy in general. The issue of HRV has become a sensitive subject in many South Asian
and Middle Eastern countries, and it has received the growing attention of the media, human-rights groups and academics around the globe.1 However, the subject has yet to receive detailed academic study in the United Kingdom, particularly in terms of both legal and sociological research. This collection of essays sets out the theoretical and ethical parameters of a study of HRV in order to address this intellectual vacuum. The key objectives of this book are:
to further construct, and further develop, a theory of HRV; to rationalise and characterise the different forms of HRV; to investigate the roles of religion, race and class in society within this
context, in particular the role of Islam; to scrutinise the role of the civil/criminal law/justice systems in preventing
these crimes; and to inform public policy-makers of the potential policies that may be
employed in combating HRV.
