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22 Feb 2009 08:42 pm

The Case Of Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan

The founder of a television station dedicated to showing how Islam is a religion of peace reacts to his wife's decision to divorce him by beheading her, and calling the cops to inform them. I learned of the case for the first time on Bill Maher, which means the MSM must have been doing a very good job suppressing it. Now the AP has provided a basic story of reaction; and the NYT's blog has a useful piece. It may be an honor killing, reacting to the disgrace of being divorced; but it's more likely just one last atrocity by a man who has terrorized every woman he has lived with:

Asma Firfirey, the sister of the deceased, stated Aasiya suffered last year from injuries that required nearly $3,000 of medical bills – allegedly the result of spousal abuse.

According to Zerqa Abid, first cousin of Hassan's first wife, "Both of his earlier wives filed divorce on the same grounds of severe domestic violence and abuses … it took [my cousin] several years to get rid of the fear of living with a man in marriage."

Attempts to deny any connection between this kind of behavior and the brutal misogyny of much Islamic culture seem bizarre to me. Obviously, the abuse of women is no community's or religion's exclusive sin. Chris Brown, anyone? My own church maintains a completely irrational and blanket discrimination against women in the priesthood. But the cultural and religious norms that facilitate brutal and often violent patriarchy in Islam make it easier for men to abuse and harder for women to resist. And the woman was beheaded. Moreover, the man had the usual misogyny widely accepted in many Muslim countries:

Nancy Sanders, the television station's news director for 2 1/2 years, remembers him asking her to move her feet during her job interview so he would not see her legs. She was wearing a skirt and stockings. He also would not let women enter his office unless his wife was there, and he blocked the station from airing a story about the first Muslim woman to win the title of Miss England in 2005, Sanders said.

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