Domestic violence happens all over the world, in all cultures and nations. So does divorce. None of that is unusual. A recent case on Long Island, however, although it has to do with the everyday issues of divorce and domestic violence, contains a sober warning for American officials. Those officials will not need that warning.
How could the horrific incident of a husband murdering his wife contain a warning that officials should heed? For the simple reason that this was an Islamic honor killing, that is, a killing carried out in accord with the teachings of Islam, in order to cleanse a family’s sullied honor. In this case, the dishonor came from a wife seeking a divorce that her husband did not want to grant her.
The details are nothing short of gruesome. The Times of India reported Wednesday that the victim was “found asphyxiated with chemical burns to the face at her home in Herricks,” Long Island. A publication in far-off India was reporting on a murder in the state of New York because the accused killer was the victim’s husband, Asif Qureshi, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan. His murdered wife, Aleena Asif, hailed from India.
New York’s WABC reported that Qureshi was arraigned on second degree murder charges on Friday morning and held without bail as a flight risk. Prosecutors said they will ask a grand jury to indict him on first degree murder charges.”
WABC explains that the couple “fought over money and their multiple homes, and Qureshi agreed to a separation agreement in late 2024. Asif request a full divorce this summer. On October 9, he was served divorce papers, which he refused to take. He began showing up at her house, starting the next day, and multiple subsequent dates, in a pattern of stalking, officials say. Authorities allege he entered her home last Friday, waited for his wife to drop off the children at school, and then killed her.”
Qureshi’s horrific act didn’t come out of the blue. He “has one prior arrest for a domestic incident with his wife, which is sealed. His five prior domestic incidents date back to 2023, four with his wife and one with his daughter. He once allegedly threatened to force her to swallow bleach. No orders of protection had been issued.”
Not surprisingly, WABC doesn’t explain why Qureshi might have felt justified in doing all this, as that would have led it into a discussion of aspects of Islam that the establishment media never wants to have. The Qur’an says: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (4:34)
To be sure, the Qur’an doesn’t allow a man to kill his wife. However, there are some notable loopholes. According to Islamic law, “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” That is, anyone who kills someone will face consequences. Yet there are exceptions: “Not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2).
There is (as is so often the case) Qur’anic justification for this. In the Islamic holy book, a mysterious figure, known as Khidr in Islamic tradition, kills a boy in an apparently random and gratuitous attack. He then explains: “And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.” (18:80-81) Thus is established the idea that it can be righteous to kill the unrighteous.
A hadith, meanwhile, depicts Muhammad saying: “A man should not be asked about why he beat his wife.” (Mishkat al-Masabih 3268) That is, what he does with her is his business.
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The murder of Aleena Asif is not an unusual occurrence. In many Muslim countries, there are even laws allowing for it. Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”
Yet no one is thinking about the possibility that honor violence could rise here as the Muslim population increases. Nevertheless, the honor murder on Long Island was by no means the first such killing in America, and it will by no means be the last.
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