The more diverse the UK becomes, the more mysterious life becomes. Especially anything that involves naming the peaceful religion that must not be named lest terrible violence occur for inexplicable reasons having nothing to do with it.

Here’s another one of those mysteries that will probably never be solved.

An “authoritarian” father accused of murdering his daughter-in-law six months after she flew to the UK to marry his son has been found guilty.

Mashal Ilyas, 24, was found unconscious at the bottom of the stairs of the family home on 9 October 2024, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Nadeem Mohammed Begum, 53, from Atherton, Wigan, told police and paramedics he had been asleep and had not seen or heard anything before he found his daughter-in-law collapsed.

However, Begum was found guilty of her murder at Manchester Crown Court earlier after forensic testing, CCTV and phone evidence linked him to the scene.

The court heard that Mashal Ilyas came to the UK following arrangements made by the two families but there were tensions in the family.

Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West Katie Marsden said: “Mashal Ilyas’s life was cruelly cut short by Nadeem Begum.

“It is difficult to understand what drove Begum to take his daughter-in-law’s life in such a brutal way.

“We may never fully understand the circumstances which led to her tragic death.”

It’s a mystery. Especially when you keep using roundabout terms instead of saying that this was an arranged marriage that the father, named a Pakistan Muslim named Mohammed, didn’t take to because his daughter-in-law was not abiding by Muslim codes of conduct and he responded with the traditional Islamic response of an honor killing.

Jurors heard that Ms Ilyas came from a ‘liberal’ family in Pakistan and went on to marry Gulrez in January last year in Pakistan. After moving to the UK, she lived with the rest of the family in a three-bedroom semi-detached house on Oxford Road.

However, there were ‘tensions’ between Ms Ilyas and Begum around her role in the household, with expectation that she was meant to cook and clean for the whole family, rather than just her husband.

No one mentions the “I” word. Of course. Better that it remains a mystery than we mention the record rates of honor-killings in Pakistan or that to most Pakistani Muslims, Mohammed did nothing wrong. And as the UK makes further concessions toward Sharia law, this will become even more of the norm.

If we don’t understand that soon, we’ll be forced to understand it even in terms Kate Marsden can comprehend.