Girl converting from Islam to Christianity drove father beserk
A girl’s decision to tell her father she was converting from Islam to Christianity sparked a stabbing frenzy that left her mother dead and her father critically injured.
Neighbour Caitlin Dalton, 20, heard 17-year-old Kaihana Hussain screaming from the three-bedroom apartment on Queensland’s Gold Coast just before 7pm on Monday night.
Ms Dalton claimed the girl, who spoke with an accent and did not wear a hijab, later said her father went berserk when she told him she was rejecting Islam.
“She just looked like she wanted to be a normal, outgoing girl,” Ms Dalton said. “She was saying her parents were really strict on her and really strict Muslims. She was telling her father she was converting from Islam to Christianity. That’s when it all started.”
An autopsy on the teenager’s mother, 41-year-old Yasmin Hussain, found she died from a single stab wound to her chest.
Her husband, Muhammad Hussain, 49, was in a critical condition at the Gold Coast hospital in an induced coma after suffering a stab wound to his chest.
Police have not yet laid any charges in relation to the killing on Monday night, nor have they been able to interview Dr Hussain, a general practitioner who moved to the Gold Coast suburb of Southport from Adelaide less than two weeks ago.
In Adelaide, the family’s former neighbours and workmates described a quiet and strict father and a devout and forceful mother.
The parents appeared to control almost every minute of Kaihana’s life, and had decided what religion and career she would follow. “I only saw the girl a couple of times - her mother took her to school and picked her up,” said a neighbour.
“She had to be a doctor - that was the way it was,” said another neighbour who talked regularly with Dr Hussain.
Yasmin Hussain’s former boss at a local Indian restaurant - where she was renowned for her Islamic sweets, work ethic and passion for cooking - said the parents “sheltered” Kaihana.
The restaurant owner said Kaihana was required to come to the restaurant on holidays and when the rest of her class at local Pembroke School was on camp.
The choice of Pembroke School was curious for devout Muslim parents, as Pembroke is a liberal, co-educational, non-denominational Christian school with a good scholastic and sports record. It is a short walk from the family’s modest single-storey townhouse on a back street in affluent Kensington, in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs.
Kaihana was in Year 10 last year and won an academic award.
Gold Coast Muslims yesterday lashed out against claims the murder was a Koran-sanctioned ritual killing to punish the rejection of Islam.
“There is no ritual killing in Islam,” Gold Coast imam Imraan Husain said at his mosque yesterday. “In certain Third World countries they have honour killings, but it has nothing to do with Islam. If a girl chooses to become a Christian, that is her choice and there are no sharia killings in this country.”
One Koran passage quotes Mohammed as saying “whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him”. However, Mr Husain said this was not meant to be read literally.
“If you only look at the surface reading, you can find contradictions in any book,” he said.
“If (Dr Hussain) did kill his wife then that is absolutely un-Islamic and he is regarded as a murderer in Islam.”
Quickly bookmark "Girl converting from Islam to Christianity drove father beserk" via:
