Anyone who cares about building bridges of greater understanding should mourn today, as Aasiya Zubair Hassan was buried at sunrise this morning. The Co-Founder and Program Director of Bridges TV, the largest provider of Muslim Programming on North American cable television, was murdered, allegedly by her husband Mo Hassan, who founded the station with Aasiya and served as its CEO.
Aasiya was also a dear friend with whom I was privileged to produce two series that I hosted for their network — Building Bridges and American Pilgrimage. Everything about her work and her life, as well as her husband’s, was violated when he apparently beheaded his wife in what appears to be an honor killing inspired by her desire to divorce her husband who had a history of abusing his wife.

Now is not the time to debate the cultural/religious context of this murder, or how Islam does or does not play a role in fostering such behavior. There will time for that later. I will only say to those who leap to the conclusion that this kind of thing is intrinsic to Islam, ask yourselves if you think that drunkenness in intrinsic to Irish Catholics, or cheating in business is to Jews. And to those who believe that no cultural soul searching is called for, I invite you not to make the mistake of those rabbis who wrote off Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir as “just crazy people whose actions had nothing to do with Judaism”.
Now is the time to offer a prayer for Aasiya, the small children she leaves behind, the entire family and even for Mo. I hope that you will join me in so doing.