Question

Preserving one's life takes priority over preserving one’s honor

193

Question

Is a woman permitted to kill herself in order to protect her honor if she knows that she cannot escape a powerful gang who has gathered to rape her?

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Accepted Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and messenger.

It is not permissible for a woman to kill herself if she knows that she cannot escape a powerful gang who has gathered to rape her. This is because she faces two conflicting interests: protecting her honor vs. protecting her life. However, protecting one's life should be given priority over protecting one’s honor.

Shaykh Abdul-Qaadir ‘Oodah stated that a coerced person usually has to choose between two prohibited or harmful matters. In this case there are two Islamic rules:

1. Harm is not removed by resorting to another harm. This implies that man is not permitted to fend off harm with similar harm. Thus, a person is not allowed to protect his land by ruining someone else’s land, or to save his money by causing the loss of the money of others. Also, a person driven by dire necessity (i.e. fearing death) to eat forbidden food is not allowed to eat the food of another person who suffers the same condition, and so forth.

2. Doing the lesser harm in order to avoid a greater harm. This implies that were there no alternative but to do one of two harmful things, it is permissible to commit the lesser harm in order to avoid doing the greater one. It is not permissible to do the opposite.

Undoubtedly, the harm in killing oneself is a grave major sin.

Allaah Knows best.

Fatwa

Preserving one's life takes priority over preserving one’s honor

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