The jury is currently deliberating in the Washington state murder trial against Ihsan and Zahraa Ali, who are accused of trying to murder their daughter. It’s not getting a lot of coverage, but it should because of the insight into a culture our immigration policy currently welcomes in.
According to witness testimony during the trial, in October 2024, the burly Ihsan Ali, his wife, Zahraa, intercepted another daughter, Fatima, outside of her high school. In full view of other students, including Fatima’s boyfriend, who was standing next to her, Ihsan grabbed Fatima, punched her boyfriend in the face as he tried to rescue her, put her into a chokehold from behind, pulled her to the ground, and tightened his grip.
Public domain images.
Several witnesses, many of whom tried to intervene, testified that Fatima’s face turned purple and her eyes rolled to the back of her head until she lost consciousness. Ihsan let go only when an adult male (ex-military) drove by, saw what was happening, and rescued Fatima, holding Ihsan until the police arrived.
Witnesses also testified that, once Ihsan was restrained, Zahraa tried to grab Fatima, scream loudly that she and her other daughter (who was present) had been abused by police (something witnesses denied), and worried about her arrested husband.
Meanwhile, Fatima and her boyfriend managed to get themselves into the school and were secured in the main office. School staff described her as staggering, her voice raspy, and that she had a terrified look on her face. Her mother ran into the school demanding her daughter back. She did so despite having been banned from campus a month prior for attempting to grab Fatima’s boyfriend.
According to the defense, the entire scenario was the reasonable care and parental discipline of a wayward daughter.
That was what happened in court.
However, there is a backstory that the judge ruled was inappropriate for the jury because it could trigger cultural biases. Seventeen-year-old Fatima was about to be sent on a one-way trip to Iraq, her parents’ homeland, where she was about to be forced into marriage with a much older man (50s or 60s). When Fatima went to school that day, she was trying to avoid being sent to Iraq and a life as a bride slave to a stranger.
The judge refused to allow the jury to hear this backstory or even the term honor killing. Fatima, in her own testimony, said her parents were not affectionate with her, and there were no hugs.
Contrary to the defense, Ishan’s and Zahraa’s behavior was not a display of parental caring. These were two parents ready and determined to murder their daughter for what they perceived as disobedience. She had an American boyfriend, and she didn’t want to submit to an arranged marriage in Iraq. For that, they fully believed it was their right to murder her to protect the family’s honor.
As the parents sit in court, mom covered forehead to toe in a shapeless garment, dad in Western clothes, both expressionless and dead-eyed, betraying no emotion except perhaps a low-boil anger, I can’t help but wonder if some of their contempt is for American jurisprudence. After all, in a Sharia court, they would not have been convicted, and Fatima would never be seen again. Here, they must endure the indignities of a female judge and two female prosecutors denying them, in their opinion, the right to murder a disobedient girl to preserve family honor. Fatima, by testifying, is dishonoring them further.
This case juxtaposes Sharia law with American law. Therefore, the parents must receive the most severe punishment possible to make it clear that Sharia law will not be tolerated here.
Beyond that, however, this case is an indictment of our immigration policy.
We Americans must ask ourselves, why did we let the Ali family move here in the first place? Why did we permit and even welcome people with their worldview to live here? They have contempt for everything this country stands for. They bring harm to us as a nation.
We see it everywhere, in Maine, in Minneapolis, in New York City, on college campuses, in the hatred and the pro-Hamas demonstrations. The Sharia mentality is harming our country. Why the hell are they here?
Why do we import people who think that daughter murder, infidel murder, spousal abuse, hatred of the West, love of intifada, and hatred and contempt for Christians and Jews are divinely ordained?
And beyond that question, now that they are here, from the Alis, to Mahmoud Khalil, to immigration fraudster Ilhan Omar, how can we repatriate them to the lands more consistent with their values and dearer to their hearts as soon as possible? What lessons as a society must we learn from Washington vs. Ali? And whatever we learn, we’d better learn fast.
Eleanor Dashwood is a pseudonym.