The crime show “Fatal Family Feuds” on Saturday night aired a peculiarly unsatisfying episode. While it offered the usual lurid details of a heinous crime, it was unusually reticent about what caused that crime, and said nothing about why similar crimes are so common in some areas of the world. That’s because the root causes of the crime in question were inextricably bound up with the left’s favorite religion, Islam. While TikTokers are converting left and right, this was a particularly inopportune time to cast aspersions upon the religion of Osama bin Laden and Hamas.
The crime in question took place on Oct. 20, 2009, in Peoria, Arizona, when a man named Faleh Almaleki got into his Jeep Cherokee and ran down his twenty-year-old daughter Noor, as well as her boyfriend’s mother, Amal Khalaf.
Noor died not long thereafter, and Faleh Almaleki was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault, and two counts of leaving the scene of a serious accident. Faleh Almaleki did not, however, face the death penalty. His attorney, public defender Billy Little, requested that the County Attorney’s Office not seek the death penalty because Almaleki was a Muslim. “An open process,” he explained, “provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs.”
And indeed, the County Attorney’s Office ultimately decided not to seek the death penalty, although it denied that Little’s request had anything to do with the decision. County Attorney Office spokesman Mike Scerbo insisted: “Cultural considerations played no part in the decision not to seek the death penalty.” Notably, he didn’t make the same denial about the other factors Little enumerated: racial, political, or religious beliefs.
Cultural considerations, meanwhile, played a decisive role in Faleh Almaleki’s actions, as he himself avowed. “By his own admission,” said county prosecutor Stephanie Low, “this was an intentional act, and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family. This was an attempt at an honor killing.” Felah Almaleki was found not guilty on a charge of premeditated murder, but was convicted of second degree murder and is in prison now.
“Fatal Family Feuds” has no problem discussing the murder of Noor Almaleki as the result of a clash of cultures. “Amal was raising her children in the Western culture,” said Maricopa County prosecutor Laura Reckhart. “Felah and Sahem,” Noor’s mother, “tried to raise their family in the traditional Iraqi culture.” Noor wanted to live an American life, and her father strenuously objected to that. Her friend Heather Goodin recalled: “Noor definitely wanted to be independent. She couldn't wait to move out.”
In keeping with its overarching theme, however, the show depicts the murder of Noor Almaleki as the fallout from a feud between her own family and that of her boyfriend. Journalist Abigail Pesta is quoted as saying that Noor’s desire for independence “was the root of an incredible family feud that just escalated into something unthinkable.” Goodin, however, states the case more accurately: “Her dad wanted her to live the way he wanted her to live. They just wanted her to stop being so Americanized.” Oxygen.com explains: “Felah was adamant that Noor not have any relationship of any type with other males, Reckhart said.” Amal Khalaf’s son Marwan “told investigators that Felah saw Noor’s actions as ‘bringing dishonor to the family.’”
Where did he get this idea? Why did it move him to murder his own daughter? About this, the show says nothing, because it’s all about Islam. “Fatal Family Feuds” gives viewers no hint of the fact that the “traditional Iraqi culture” in which Noor Almaleki was raised is deeply rooted in Islam.
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) The import is clear: killing a child for impiety is not unjustified.
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And according to Islamic law, “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).
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 honor ‘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.”
“Fatal Family Feuds” wouldn’t dare tell viewers such things. And so they’re helping ensure that such murders will happen again in our vibrantly diverse new America.
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