A MAN beheaded his 15-month-old nephew in front of his mother in a supermarket in Saudi Arabia apparently after a family dispute, newspapers reported.

The 25-year-old Syrian national picked up a knife from the store in the Red Sea city of Jeddah yesterday and decapitated the little boy in full view of shoppers, Arab News said

Barbaric as this was, did it actually have anything to do with being a Muslim or was it just a sick murderous act?

To understand the heinous double standards at play, look no further than the case of a 19-year-old Saudi woman who was gang-raped last year.

Despite being abducted and raped by seven men, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced her to 90 lashes because she was in a car with an unrelated man before she was abducted. Saudi Arabia’s ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islamic law preaches a strict segregation of the sexes.

In Shari'a law, women can be put to death by their male relatives. Namely, if a man find his wife, his sister or female cousin in extramarital affair, he has the right to kill her without being punished. Bourguignon showed an article that appeared in New Nork Times where a father killed his 15-year-old daughter in Lebanon because she had a sexual relationship with a boy and the father was sentenced to just nine months. Bourguignon pointed out that "The man involved was a Saudi. Had he done the same thing at home, there would have been no penalty" (25). In contrast, the Shari'a law does not mention anything if a woman finds her male relative or even husband in extramarital affair which does not make any sense for penalizing females only.