Iran and Afghanistan“Honor,” a translation of nàmùs, sharaf, and a
number of related concepts, is a central term in the
languages and cultures of Afghanistan and Iran. In
spite of the amazing diversity of the two countries –
in culture, ethnicity, religion, language, class, and
social formations – honor bridges the historical and
geographic divides, and regulates the exercise of
gender power with remarkable consistency.
Nàmùs, in Persian, Dari, Tajik, and other lan-
guages of the region, is at the core of a semantic
field, which includes synonyms such as àbirù, rep-
utation, sharaf, honor, dignity, ≠iffat, chastity, ≠ir∂,
reputation, honor, ≠ißmat, chastity,hayà±, timidity,
™ujb, shyness, modesty, najàbat, decency, pàkdà
manì, chastity, and sharm, shame. Although poly-
semic, these concepts point to the hierarchical
organization of female and male sexualities, as well
as class and status. Some are defined primarily as
female qualities (pàkdàmanì,≠ißmat,≠iffat, or ™ujb)
and are used as female personal names (≠Ißmat and
≠Iffat) or names of women’s institutions (for exam-
ple, Nàmùs Girls’ School). Each noun or its deriva-
tives has antonyms (bìàbirù±ì,bì™ayà±ì, and so
forth), which, in spite of their pejorative meanings,
depict the ability of women to deviate from the
strictly regulated regime of gender relations. Men
also violate rules of honor by engaging in hatk-i
≠ißmator hatk-i nàmùs(hatk, tearing, rending, rape),
zinà, adultery, and incest.
A female, her body, sexuality, name, and fame,
is the bearer or, rather, the repository of nàmùs,
and is always liable to lose it through extra- or pre-
marital relations, real or imagined, with or without
her consent, for example, in rape or incest. A
woman’s nàmùsbelongs to the male members of
the family, kin, community, tribe, and nation. One
of the meanings of nàmùs, in a number of lan-
guages including Persian, is “wife, and all the
women belonging to a man, such as mother and sis-
ter and daughter and the like; female (members) of
a family” (Dihkhudà1994).
The violation of a female’s honor generally leads
to the loss of her life. The family, kin, and commu-
nity, including females, participate, directly or indi-
rectly, in the killing by expecting it to happen.
While pre-Islamic in origins and non-Qur±ànic,
Honor
honor killing is sanctioned in Sharì≠a texts, which in
turn inform modern penal codes that do not crimi-
nalize it or are lenient in punishing the killers. In the
Islamic Republic of Iran and Afghanistan, married
adulterers are killed judicially through public cere-
monies of stoning to death (sangsàr kardanor rajm
kardan).
Honor-centered norms of propriety, although
rooted in the male control of women’s bodies and
female sexuality, are not limited to the regulation of
sexual relations. Honor is a complex social institu-
tion, which is crucial for the (re)production of
patriarchal social relations.
Honor is closely inscribed in the values of brav-
ery, courage, pugnacity, fearlessness, and generos-
ity, all of which are meanings for the word mard,
man and mardànagì, manliness, in Persian (Dih-
khudà1994) and other languages of the region.
The defense of the family, kin, tribe, village, city,
and country is an honor conferred on the members
of the male gender. In Persian oral and written tra-
ditions, the word zan, woman, is the antonym of
mard. It implies, among other pejorative connota-
tions, timidity, cowardice, and weakness (intellec-
tual and physical). While this gender regime does
not leave much room for females to lead an “hon-
orable” life, individual women can achieve honor,
fame, and respect on accounts of bravery, hospital-
ity, piety, generosity, knowledge, and wisdom. In
princely or aristocratic families, for instance, indi-
vidual women have occasionally ruled over tribes,
regions, and territories, although always in the
absence of a male member of the ruling family, and
anticipating the transfer of power to a male child
on adulthood. Since the early 1970s, women have
participated in armed struggles against the state.
The practice of honor varies according to con-
text, for example, class, socioeconomic formation,
religion, education, and ethnicity. For instance,
among the Bilbas tribal confederacy in Kurdistan,
it has been an honor for a woman to elope at least
once in her life, whereas such a practice would
bring shame to urban upper-class families (Mengurì
1999). While shyness and delicacy define the ideal
urban upper-class woman, female strength and stub-
bornness are highly valued in pastoral-nomadic
and agrarian formations, where women are a major
force in the labor-intensive production system.