Islamic Honor Killing on Long Island

The left has been working for years on the world we live in now, and all around us we can see the fruit of their labors: dirty, dangerous cities, homeless encampments, cannabis stores, rising crime, and so much more. New York’s WABC on Friday gave us another reason to thank our leftist bureaucrats and elected officials as it told a harrowing story: “A man is under arrest on Friday in a gruesome homicide on Long Island after his wife was found dead and suffering from facial burns — covered with a chemical substance.”

Why would the horrific prospect of a husband murdering his wife be the result of the left’s policies? Because this was an attempted Islamic honor killing, that is, a killing carried out in accord with the teachings of the religion that the left insists is peaceful and tolerant, on pain of charges of “Islamophobia,” and professional and possibly even personal ruin.

In Herricks, Long Island, “authorities say Aleena Asif, 46, was suffocated with a cyanide-like compound by her estranged husband, who was stalking her after she demanded a divorce.” And now “her husband, 53-year-old Asif 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.”

The WABC report sets out the details of the case with chilling succinctness, its matter-of-fact reportage failing to conceal what must have been months of fear and terror for Aleena Asif: “The two 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.”

Asif Qureshi, a naturalized American citizen, “has one prior arrests for a domestic incident with his wife, which is sealed. He five prior domestic incidents dating 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.”

WABC doesn’t get into why Qureshi might have felt justified in doing all this. 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)

The Qur’an doesn’t allow a man to kill his wife. According to Islamic law, however, “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “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).

And in the Qur’an, 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)

A man can kill his impious child and not fear punishment, and he cannot kill his impious wife? Maybe not, but another tradition has 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.

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” 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.”

Thanks to the left’s refusal to face the harsh realities of Islam and its open-door mass migration imperative, honor killing has now become a feature of the American landscape. The honor murder on Long Island was by no means the first. It will not be the last.