In February 2009, Aasiya Z. Hassan, a 37-year-old Muslim woman, was founded decapitated in Orchard Park, N.Y., a village near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, admits that he beheaded his wife. Yet now, in a bizarre turn in the case, Muzzammil Hassan has claimed that he was the real victim in the case, driven to murder his wife after enduring years of her emotional and physical abuse.
The case stands as a classic example of the universal tendency on the part of Islamic supemacists and jihadists to blame everyone but themselves for what they have done.
In a larger sense, Muzzammil Hassan’s attempt to claim that he was actually the victim of the woman he beheaded is exactly like the jihadis blaming American foreign policy for the global jihad, and is related to the campaign to get the West to “stop linking Islam with terrorism.”
Islamic jihadists link Islam with terrorism with consistency and religious fervor, but if a Western non-Muslim notices this, he is “hateful,” “bigoted,” “Islamophobic,” “ignorant of Islam,” etc. Never would the Muslims who accuse non-Muslims of “hate” for “linking Islam with terrorism” ever look to themselves, see the responsibility for the link as being within the Muslim community rather than outside it, and challenge those jihadists instead.
It is always someone else’s fault. In this case, according to the Buffalo News, “Hassan has never publicly denied killing his wife. Instead, he has suggested he will build his court defense on the grounds that as a long-abused spouse, he finally snapped and killed his wife in a desperate bid to end the psychological abuse inflicted upon him.” Hassan himself has claimed that “anytime I sought outside help, I got falsely accused of sexual misconduct or physical abuse—more than 12 police reports, each in response to my reaching out for help from counselors, my family or her family.”
Poor lamb. Clearly the only option left open to him was to behead his wife.
It seems as if Muzzammil Hassan is an old hand at this kind of deception. He beheaded Aasiya in the offices of the Muslim cable channel, Bridges TV, which he founded. Muzzammil Hassan founded Bridges TV in 2004 to combat the negative perceptions of Muslims that he thought were dominating the mainstream media.
According to a Reuters story at the time, none other than Aasiya “came up with the idea.” It was all about depicting Muslims as moderate and peaceful. Muzzammil explained: “Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her. She was seven-months pregnant, and she thought she didn’t want her kids growing up in this environment.”
Bridges TV originally declared that its intention was to “fuse American culture with the values of Islam in a healthy, family-oriented way.”
However, there were indications at the outset that it might not have been as moderate as many assumed. Bridges TV from the beginning had ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case, and Islamicity.com, which retails rabid anti-Semitic literature. In 2006 Arab News reported that Hassan was trying to raise money for the network from Saudi investors.
Government and law enforcement officials should have recognized these warning signs and paid more heed to Aasiya Hassan’s claims of abuse. The mainstream media should not have given Muzzammil Hassan credibility as a “moderate” Muslim without looking more deeply into his connections. And on a larger scale, the claims of groups like CAIR that have so many connections to terror groups and activities should no longer be taken at face value.
The stakes are simply too high. And the decapitated body of Aasiya Hassan will be just the beginning if these words are not needed, as they probably will not be.
Muzzammil Hassan is not a victim. Muzzammil Hassan is a murderer. Islamic jihadists worldwide are not victims of American foreign policy, or Israel’s, or of anything else. They are murderers. If the West doesn’t regain its moral clarity about this, it will not prevail against them.