BUFFALO, N.Y. — The mourners carried her severed body inside the white brick mosque on a frosty morning before the sun rose, before the children arrived for school.
Removing their shoes, wives and mothers shrouded in black passed through the women's prayer area, cordoned off from the men's with white drapes, and made their way to the washing room. Once inside, they slipped into sandals and, in observance of Islamic tradition, gently bathed her body on a bone-colored tile table the size of a casket to prepare it for burial.
From a distance, a woman named Samia, round-cheeked with thick eyebrows, who cooked meals at the mosque, watched the procession with horror in her heart.
Samia could not bring herself to enter the washing room or look at the victim, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, a woman she had known informally in life. She was too shaken to attend the funeral.
The two wives were connected by the close-knit Muslim community in western New York, including Buffalo, about 400 miles from New York City. But unbeknownst to each other, both shared a secret -- marriages stained by abuse.
Samia got help. Aasiya died before help came.
She was stabbed several times before being beheaded Feb. 12, inside a dull yellow warehouse that served as headquarters for the Muslim television station she founded with her husband, Muzzammil Hassan.
Muzzammil Hassan has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing, and last month pleaded not guilty.
Aasiya was 37 when she was killed -- the same age as Samia.
Early news reports, and gossip in the community, called it an "honor killing," a term that upset Muslims across the country for its implication that the abuse was tied to the couple's faith.
Samia, who did not want to use her last name for fear it would shame her family, remembers Aasiya, who had wavy black hair and a narrow nose, as appearing poised and professional in public, often wearing red lipstick.
Though some Muslim families in the community believe wives should stay home while husbands work, Samia said she considered Aasiya a modern career woman who wore blazers instead of a hijab and worked diligently on behalf of the television station.
For Samia, who accepted her husband back home in December after five years of on-and-off-again separation, a scary realization choked her thoughts: This could have been me.
'Happy bride'
Aasiya was raised in a well-off family in Pakistan, and although she was Muslim, she attended an all-girls convent school, St. Joseph's. She went on to study at one of the country's most prestigious colleges, the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi.
"She wanted to do architecture from the beginning. She idealized her father, a respected architect," said Asma Kumial, a childhood friend. She described Aasiya as a natural athlete, tall and slender, who played on the basketball team.
After college, Aasiya worked at several architecture firms in Karachi. One of her projects was an upscale cafe called Okra, which she designed from scratch.
She had a large wedding, friends said, but not overly elaborate by Karachi society standards. "She seemed like a happy bride," said Rana Tanivir, who attended convent school with Aasiya.
In 2000, Aasiya joined her husband in Orchard Park, N.Y., where he worked. Friends and colleagues from Pakistan lost touch after Aasiya moved to the United States. Only a few of her friends had met the groom before the wedding, and his past -- two previous marriages and two children -- raised eyebrows.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Aasiya proposed creating a television channel to give Muslims a fair portrayal in the media. With talk shows, game shows and documentaries, it would do for U.S. Muslims what "The Cosby Show" did for African Americans.
Muzzammil Hassan jumped on his wife's suggestion. He ambitiously built Bridges TV around her vision, soliciting investors and subscribers from the Muslim community throughout Buffalo and the U.S.
Hassan Shibley, a former producer at Bridges TV, said the kind and loving Aasiya represented the heart of Islam. She took the two children to pray at the mosque, but Shibley rarely saw her husband attend.
"The main priority for him was business; it wasn't the message of Islam," Shibley said.
Hassan was a "a very, very focused man," said Faizan Haq, a local professor of cultural studies who took part in the TV station's early stages. "It was Aasiya's dream, but it was his planning."
Hassan could also be stubborn, and his incessant questioning and difficult nature became too much for Haq to bear. Haq quit the station before it launched in 2004.
In public, Hassan credited his wife as the inspiration for the station. But few knew what was happening at home.
