Updated: Beheaded in Buffalo: The Honor Killing of Asiya Z. Hassan (Parts 1 and 2)

PART ONE, 02/16/09 – Beheaded in Buffalo: The Honor Killing of Asiya Z. Hassan

On February 13, 2009, in Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo, 44 year-old Muzzamil Hassan, a prominent Muslim businessman was arrested for having be-headed his wife, 37 year-old Aasiya Z. Hassan. Yes, he beheaded her. Aasiya’s crime? She dared to obtain an order of protection which forced her violent husband out of their home.

We are now sadly familiar with some high profile Islamic beheadings of infidels in Muslim lands; Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, immediately come to mind. Sadly, we are also familiar with the practice of beheading, dismembering, burying alive, and stoning Muslim (and sometimes Christian) women to death in Muslim lands. But this took place in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, in America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. What can this mean? Why behead a wife who wanted a divorce and who wanted to live free of daily violence? Why didn’t Hassan just agree to a divorce?

Because this foul murder is very probably an honor killing, a crime which has little to do with western-style domestic violence. Erie County District Attorney Frank A Sedita III has it all wrong. He commented: “Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible.”

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PART TWO 02/17/09 – Cold, Premeditated, Ritual Murder. The Honor Killing of Aasiya Z. Hassan

Was Aasiya Z. Hassan the victim of an honor murder or was this simply a form of domestic violence? Did her husband kill her in an act of spontaneous passion or was her death carefully premeditated?

Yesterday, I published my study: “Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?” in Middle East Quarterly. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first such study of its kind. You may read it in full HERE. It will be out in hardcopy at the beginning of March.

If we refuse to understand what an honor killing is and how it differs from western-style domestic violence, we will not be able to prosecute honor killers, grant asylum to those in flight from being honor murdered, nor will we be able to educate people against honor killing. Many Muslim-American organizations insist that honor killing is “Un-Islamic.” Yet, many scholars of Islam equally assert that the Qu’ran as well as custom permits grave punishment for “disobedient” women.

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