by Jean Sasson
Mohammed, our beloved Prophet of Islam, taught that men should divide their time equally among their wives. In this case, the husband was so occupied with the charms of his young bride that to please their husband, wives numbers one and two frequently agreed to lose their turns for mating. The young girl said her husband was a man of great power and did “it” many times a day. Her eyes widened as she moved her arm up and down in the pumping motion for added effect.
Now she was frightened, for she had given birth to a daughter, not a son. Her husband would be angry when he came to claim them for the trip back to the village, for the firstborns of the other two wives had been sons. Now, with foreboding, she sensed that she would be scorned by her husband.
She recalled little of her childhood, which now seemed ages ago. She had been raised poorly and experienced little but hard work and sacrifice. She described how she had helped her numerous brothers and sisters to herd the goats and camels and tend to a small garden. I was anxious to know her feelings of men and women and life, but since she was sadly lacking in education, I did not receive the answers I was seeking.
She was gone before I could say good-bye. I felt cold from the thought of her bleak life and wandered back to my suite in a despondent state.
In a fit of anxiety over the safety of his son, Kareem had posted armed guards at the door of my suite. When I had made my morning walk to the nursery, I was surprised to see guards standing in front of another room. I thought that another princess must be in the ward. I eagerly asked a nurse to tell me the name of the princess. A crease formed on her brow when she told me that I was the only princess in the hospital.
She told me the story, but not before she advised me that she was absolutely scandalized. Then she proceeded to insult all the people on earth before she described the happenings in Room 212. She said that nothing of the sort would ever happen in her country, that the British are quite civilized, thank you, and that they make the rest of the world seem simply barbaric.
My imagination could not take me to such depths of anger, so I implored her to tell me what was happening before Kareem paid his afternoon visit.
The day before, she told me, the hospital staff had been dismayed to see a young girl about to deliver, shackled in leg irons and handcuffs, escorted to the maternity ward by armed guards. A group of angry mutawas, followed by the frightened administrator, had accompanied the guards; they, not the administrator, had appointed a physician to her case.
To the physician’s consternation, he had been informed that the girl had been tried in the Shari’a (the law of God) courts and found guilty of fornication. Since this was a crime of Hudud (a crime against God), the penalty was severe. The mutawas, clothed in self-righteousness, were there to bear witness to the appropriate punishment.
The physician, a Muslim from India, made no protest to the mutawas, but he was incensed at the role he was forced to play. He told the staff that the usual punishment for fornication was flogging, but in this instance, the father had insisted upon death for his daughter. The girl was to be guarded until she delivered, at which time she was to be stoned to death.
The nurse’s chin quivered in indignation as she reported that the girl was no more than a child. She guessed her age at fourteen or fifteen. She knew few other details and left my bedside to gossip with the other nurses in the hallway.
I begged Kareem to uncover the story. He hesitated, saying that this was not a matter of our concern. After much pleading and the shedding of tears on my part, he promised to inquire into the matter.
Sara lightened my day when she brought me bright news of her evolving romance. Asad had spoken with Father and had received the expected positive answer. Sara and Asad were going to marry within three months. I was thrilled for my sister, who had known so little happiness.
Then she divulged other news that made my stomach sink with fear. She and Asad had made plans to meet in Bahrain the following weekend. When I protested, Sara said she was traveling to meet Asad, with or without my assistance. She planned to advise Father that she was still at our palace, helping me in my new role of motherhood. She would tell Noorah that she was back at Father’s home. She said no one would guess otherwise.
I asked how she could travel without Father’s permission, for I knew he kept all the family passports locked in his safe at the office. Besides, she would require a letter of permission from Father or she would never gain entry onto the plane. I cringed when Sara told me she had borrowed a passport and a permission letter from a girlfriend who had planned a trip to Bahrain to visit relatives, but had had to cancel when one of the relatives became ill.
Since Saudi women veil, and the security guards at the airport would never dare ask to see a woman’s face, many Saudi women borrow each other’s passports for such occasions. The letter of permission was the added difficulty; but they too are swapped, along with the passports. Sara would return the good deed at a later date by planning a trip to a nearby country and canceling at the last minute, then lending her credentials to the same friend. It was a detailed, underground operation that none of our men ever figured out. I had always been amused at the ease with which women tricked the airport officials, but now that it was my sister, I was shaken with worry.
In an effort to discourage Sara from any reckless acts, I related the story of the young girl waiting to be stoned to death. Sara, as I, was distraught, but her plans remained solid. With increasing trepidation, I agreed to be her cover. She burst out laughing at the thought of meeting Asad without supervision. He had arranged to borrow a friend’s apartment in Manama, the capital of the tiny country of Bahrain.
Sara, in her mood of anticipation, lifted my son from his silken cocoon. With joyful eyes, she absorbed his perfection, and said that she too would soon know the joys of motherhood, for she and Asad longed for the six little ones predicted with such certainty by Huda.
I displayed the happy countenance expected by my sister, but fear settled in my belly like frozen fire.
Kareem returned early in the evening with information about the condemned girl. He said she was known to be wanton and had become pregnant after having sex with numerous teenage boys.
Kareem was disgusted with her behavior. He said that in her disdain for the laws of our land, she had humiliated the honor of her family name; there was no other course possible for her family to take.
I asked my husband of the punishment for the young males who had participated, but he had no answer. I suggested that they had more than likely received a stern lecture in lieu of a death sentence; in the world of Arabs, blame for unsanctioned sex is placed wholly on the shoulders of the female. Kareem stunned me with his calm acceptance of the planned execution of a child, no matter what the crime. In spite of my appeals for him to make some effort to intervene with the king, who could often attain success with a father bent on violent punishment, Kareem dismissed my cries of alarm with unconcealed irritation and insisted that the subject be dropped.
I was withdrawn and sullen when he bade me farewell. He lavished our son with kisses and promises of a perfect life while I sat dull and unresponsive.
I was preparing to depart the hospital when the British nurse entered my suite in a white glow of anger. She brought heavy tidings of the condemned girl. She possessed an uncanny memory and recalled every painful detail, in perfect clarity, that she had been told by the physician from India. The condemned girl had given birth to a baby daughter in the early hours of the morning.
Three mutawas had been told of the indignation from the foreign community, and they stood with the armed guards at the entry of the delivery theater to ensure that no sympathetic foreigner assisted the girl to escape. After delivery, the girl was wheeled back into her room. The mutawas informed the physician that the new mother would be removed on that day and taken away to be stoned for her crime against God. The fate of the newborn had not been determined since the family had refused to raise the child as their own.
With horror
in her eyes, the nurse stated that the young girl had tearfully told the physician the events that had led to her tragic situation. Her name was Amal and she was the daughter of a shopkeeper in Riyadh. She had been only thirteen years old when the event occurred that shattered her world. She had just begun to veil.
It was a Thursday night (equivalent to Saturday nights in the Western world). Amal’s parents had traveled to the Emirates for the weekend and would not return until Saturday noon. Three Filipino house servants were sleeping and the driver was in his small gate house, far removed from the main dwelling. Amal’s older married siblings were living in other areas of the city. Of the family, only she and her seventeen-year-old brother were left at home. Her brother and the three Filipinos had been instructed to take care of her. Her brother had taken the opportunity to entertain a large group of teenage friends while his parents were out of the country. Amal heard loud music and voices late into the evening; the game room was located directly below her bedroom. She thought that her brother and his friends were more than likely smoking marijuana, a substance with which her brother had lately become enamored.
Finally, when the walls of Amal’s bedroom began to vibrate from the sounds of the bass from the stereo, she decided to go downstairs to ask her brother and his friends to turn down their music. Dressed only in her thin nightgown, she had no intention of entering the room, just poking her head into the doorway to yell for peace and quiet. The lights were dim, and the room was dark; her brother did not respond to her cries, so the girl went inside to look for him.
Amal’s brother was not to be found. The other teenage boys in the room were obviously heated with drugs and talk of women, for Amal was pounced upon by several boys at once and found herself pinned to the floor. She screamed for her brother and tried to make the boys understand that she was the daughter of the house, but her pleas did not register in their drugged minds. Her gown was ripped from her body. She was brutally assaulted by her brother’s friends, as they had turned into a frenzied mob. The volume of the music muffled the sounds of the attack, and no one heard her screams for help. Amal lost consciousness after the third boy raped her.
Her brother had been in the bathroom, but he was so drugged that he had slumped against the wall and slept in a haze through the remainder of the night. Later, when the dawn of light cleared the heads of the attackers and Amal’s true identity was revealed, the boys fled the villa.
Amal was taken to a nearby hospital by the driver and the Filipinos. The doctor in the emergency room notified the police. The mutawas became involved. Due to Amal’s seclusion as a female, she could not identify her attackers by name, only that they were acquaintances of her brother. Their names were taken from Amal’s brother, but by the time they were collected and asked to appear before the police for statements, they had taken great pains to collaborate on their story. According to the boys’ version of the evening, no drugs had been present. They acknowledged only that they had been playing loud music and having innocent fun. They said the girl had entered the room in a sheer nightdress and enticed them to have sex. She told the boys she had been upstairs reading a book on sex and had a great deal of curiosity. They swore that they had turned her down at first, but that she behaved in such a bold manner—sitting on their laps, kissing them, fingering her body—that they could not hold back any longer. The girl had been left without a chaperon and was determined to have a good time with some boys. They declared that she was insatiable and had begged them all to participate.
The parents returned from the Emirates. Amal’s mother believed her daughter’s story; although demented with grief, she was unable to convince her husband of the girl’s innocence. Amal’s father, who had always been uncomfortable with daughters, was stricken by the event, but felt that the boys had done only what any male would do under the circumstances. With a heavy heart, he concluded that his daughter must be punished for shaming his name. Amal’s brother, fearful of severe punishment for using drugs, did not step forward to clear his sister’s name. The mutawas offered the father moral support in his strong stance and showered him with accolades for his religious conviction.
The girl would die today.
Consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear, I barely heard the continued exclamations of the British nurse. I felt the miserable decline of my happiness as I imagined the girl’s innocence and the futility of her mother’s efforts to save her from a cruel death. I myself had never witnessed a stoning, but Omar had done so on three occasions and had taken great delight in describing to us the fate that awaited weak women who did not carefully guard their honor, which was so prized by their men. I thought of the vivid description with which Omar had burdened my memory.
When I was twelve years of age, a woman in one of the small villages not far from Riyadh had been found guilty of adultery. She was condemned to die by stoning. Omar and our neighbors’ driver decided to go and view the spectacle.
A large crowd had gathered since early morning. They were restless and waiting to see the one so wicked. Omar said that just as the crowd was becoming angry with impatience in the hot sun, a young woman of about twenty-five years of age was roughly pulled out of a police car. He said she was very beautiful, just the sort of woman who would defy the laws of God.
The woman’s hands were bound. Her head hung low. With an official manner, a man loudly read out her crime for the crowd to hear. A dirty rag was used to gag her mouth and a black hood was fastened around her head. She was forced to kneel. A large man, the executioner, flogged the woman upon her back; fifty blows.
A truck appeared and rocks and stones were emptied in a large pile. The man who had read off the crime informed the crowd that the execution should begin. Omar said the group of people, mostly men, rushed toward the stones and began to hurl the rocks at the woman. The guilty one quickly slumped to the ground and her body jerked in all directions. Omar said the rocks continued to thud against her body for what seemed to be an interminable time. Every so often, the stones would quiet while a doctor would check the woman’s pulse. After a period of nearly two hours, the doctor finally pronounced the woman dead and the stoning ceased.
The British nurse interrupted my sad ponderings when she returned to my rooms in great agitation. The police and mutawas were taking the girl away for her punishment. She said that if I stood in my doorway I could see her face, for the girl was not veiled. I heard a great commotion in the hallway. Quickly, I fastened my veil around my face. My feet moved my body forward without thought or intention.
The doomed one was fragile and childlike between the tall, stoic guards who led her to her fate. Her chin rested on her chest, so it was difficult to see the expression on her face. But I discerned that she was a pretty child, one who would have grown into beauty had she been allowed the opportunity to age. She glanced up with dread and peered into the sea of faces that was watching her with great curiosity. I saw that her fear was great. There were no relatives to travel with her to the grave, only strangers to see her off on the darkest of journeys.
I returned to my suite. I held my baby son with great tenderness and considered the relief I felt that he was not of the weaker sex. I gazed into his tiny face with wonder. Would he too uphold and thereby harden the system that was so unfair to his mother and sisters? I considered the possibility that all female babies should be put to death at birth in my land. Perhaps the stern attitude of our men would be tempered by our absence. I shuddered and the question came into my mind. How could a mother protect the young of her own sex from the laws of the land?
The eyes of the stalwart British nurse were wet with tears. She sniffled and asked why I, a princess, did not intervene in such madness. I told her that I could not help the one condemned; women are not allowed a voice in my land, not even women of the Royal Family. With sorrow I told the nurse that not only would the girl die as scheduled but her death would be hard and her life and death would go unrecorded. With bitterness, I thought of the truly guilty ones roami
ng free, without thought or care for the tragic death they had wrought.
Kareem arrived with a joyful face. He had organized our return to the palace as carefully as a plan of war. Police escorts eased our journey through the bustling traffic of the growing city of Riyadh. Kareem told me to hush when I related the incident at the hospital. He had no desire to hear such sadness with his new son in his arms, traveling toward his destiny as a prince in a land that soothed and nurtured such a one as he.
My feelings for my husband suffered as I saw that he cared little for the fate of a lowly girl. I gave a deep sigh and felt lonely and afraid of what I and my future daughters might face in the years to come.
Chapter Sixteen: Death of a King
The year 1975 holds bittersweet memories for me; it was a year of both glittering happiness and discouraging sadness for my family and my country.
Surrounded by those who loved him, Abdullah, my adored son, celebrated his second birthday. A small circus from France was brought over on our private planes to entertain. The circus stayed for a week at the palace of Kareem’s father.
Sara and Asad had survived their daring courtship and were now happily married and awaiting their first child. Asad, in great expectation of the child to be born, had flown to Paris and purchased all the baby clothes in stock at three large stores. Noorah, his disbelieving mother, told all who would listen that Asad had lost his mind. Enveloped in such love, my longsuffering sister, Sara, beamed with happiness at last.
Ali was studying in the United States and was no longer intimately involved in his sisters’ affairs. He gave Father the fright of his life when he announced that he was in love with an American working-class woman, but much to Father’s relief, Ali was fickle and soon informed us that he preferred to have a Saudi wife. We later discovered that the woman had struck Ali over the head with a candlestick when he became belligerent and demanding at her refusal to be obedient.