Princess Sultana's Daughters

by Jean Sasson

  Satisfied, I smiled and patted her hand, thinking that I had accomplished much good in bringing my family together for the holy event.

  Soon we arrived in the city, which is enclosed by the Valley of Abraham and surrounded by mountain ranges to the east, west, and south. Makkah is set in a rugged landscape that consists mainly of solid granite, but the ancient city is the most beautiful of sights to all Muslims.

  I chanted, “Here I am, O God! Here I am!” Outside the Holy Mosque of Makkah, a specially appointed official guide greeted us. He would be our Imam, or minister, during our prayers. Sara and I remained with our daughters, while Kareem and Asad walked away with our sons. As we climbed the marble steps of the Holy Mosque, we could hear other worshippers praying. As everyone did, we slipped off our shoes before entering the mosque.

  All Muslims know that the Prophet always moved with the right side of his body, therefore I carefully entered the courtyard of the Holy Mosque by stepping through the Gate of Peace with my right foot first.

  Crowds were rushing through all seven gates that open into the Mosque courtyard. There were many pilgrims sitting in the area, most were reading quietly.

  That’s when the call to prayer was heard. Sara and I, with our daughters, lined up in a row behind the men to give our prayers. Although I am of the royal family, I know that in the eyes of God, I am the same as the poorest Muslim. As soon as our prayers were completed, we walked toward the Kaaba. The Kaaba is located in the centre of the Mosque. Our Koran tells us that “The first house of God that was built for people is the one in Makkah. In a corner of the Kaaba is the Black Stone. The Black Stone had been honored by Prophet Mohammed. We are taught that Prophet Mohammed helped to place it in the Kaaba.

  That’s when my sister and I, along with our daughters, began to walk around the Kaaba. It is imperative to keep the Kaaba to our left as we chant, “God is most Great. O God, grant us good in this work and good in the hereafter, and protect us from the torment of the fires in hell.”

  Much to my surprise I saw that Amani was weeping. Through her cries, I heard her ask God to assist her in divorcing herself from the world of royal luxuries, to help her be better equipped to stamp out human wickedness. She pleaded with God to swallow up all the sins of mankind and to cure the ills of the world. Amani was having a religious experience. Her eyes were red, but she ignored my touch of love, tenderly given as we left the area to continue our walk to the Station of Ibrahim, which is also located in the Holy Mosque. I watched Amani even as I performed further prostrations.

  Soon we left to walk to the Well of Zamzam, and the Mas’a, or what is known as the Running Place. My family has built an air-conditioned gallery so that pilgrims would not suffer sunstroke in the hot Saudi desert. Although men run, women walk. I drank the waters of the Zamzam from a water tap covered by a marble vault. Just as we were about to depart the waters of Zamzam, we heard a loud commotion sweeping through the crowd of pilgrims.

  Curious, I walked toward a group of Muslim women from Indonesia and asked them in the English language if they knew the source of the excitement.

  One of them replied, “Yes!” Three men had fallen and been trampled upon, and they had heard that two of the men had died! I could not catch my breath! I could think of nothing but my husband! Kareem! Had his nightmare come true, after all?

  I ran back to my sister and our daughters, my eyes wild with terror, my incoherent words making no sense. Sara grabbed my shoulders and demanded to know what was the trouble.

  “Kareem! I have heard some men have been trampled. I fear for Kareem’s life!”

  Thinking that I had seen his body, my daughters began to moan, and Sara raised her voice, demanding to know why I thought one of the dead men might be Kareem.

  I told Sara, “A dream! Kareem suffered a dream that he would be crushed at Haj! Now, some men have been trampled to death in the area where he was last seen.”

  Sara, like me, has learned there is much in life that is not for our understanding, that unexplained forces move through our lives. She was concerned, though not yet as hysterical as I.

  Just as we were about to split into three groups to search for our men, we saw that two stretchers with bodies covered in white sheets were being carried through the crowd. I ran as fast as I could and, screaming, ripped the sheets from the bodies of the dead, first one and then the other.

  The four hospital workers from Makkah stood frozen to the spot, not knowing what to expect next from this woman who was clearly deranged.

  Neither of the dead men was Kareem! Both were old, and it was easy to see how they could have been pushed to their deaths.

  I held the sheet in my hand and stood over the body of one man, crying out in great relief that I did not know him. I was standing in that position just as Kareem, Asad, and our sons followed the sounds of the shouting women to see what calamity had occurred.

  Kareem could not believe his eyes! His wife was laughing with joy at the sight of a man dead! He pushed through the crowd and caught me by my wrists, pulling me from the scene.

  “Sultana! Have you gone quite mad?” Sara quickly explained what I had feared, and Kareem’s angry look softened. Embarrassed, he had to explain the fearful nightmare he had described to his wife.

  The atmosphere was electric with emotion. The crowd began to mumble and look menacingly in my direction, as the wives of the two dead men realized their tragedy and learned that I had laughed like a hyena at the deaths of their husbands.

  We hurriedly left the area, while Asad revealed our identity to some guards. With the protection of the guards, Asad gave a gift of SR 3,000 to each of the families and told them we were of the royal family. He quickly explained my fear of Kareem’s dream and pacified the angry crowd.

  After we escaped the scene, my family began to laugh nervously, and later, as time erased the shame of my conduct, the situation became a hilarious event that has entertained them on more than one occasion.

  *

  Our rituals were completed for the first day of Haj. We then returned to our palace in Jeddah, which is situated on the waters of the Red Sea. During the drive, in an attempt to put the experience of the trampled men out of our minds, each of us shared our profound experiences of the day. Only Amani was strangely quiet and withdrawn.

  I thought to myself that there was something perplexing about my youngest child’s demeanor.

  The feeling of impending doom would not leave me, and once we were back in our home, I followed Kareem around until I could focus my thoughts and articulate what was in my heart and on my mind. I accompanied him from the entrance hall to our bedroom and out onto the balcony, then back into the bedroom and into his library.

  An abyss divided our moods. Looking at me in exasperation, Kareem finally asked, “Sultana, what can I do for you?”

  Unsure of what my concerns were, I had difficulty expressing myself. “Have you noticed your daughter Amani today?” I asked. “Amani is worrying me. I feel that a strange mood is oppressing our daughter. I do not like it.”

  In a weary tone, my husband insisted, “Sultana, cease to view danger where there is none. She is at Haj. Do you not believe that all pilgrims are engrossed in special thought?” He paused and then added in a malicious tone, “Other than you, Sultana.” Kareem then stood silent, but he gave me a withering look that spoke clearly of his desire for solitude. Irritated, I left Kareem in his library. I searched for Maha, but she had retired to her bedroom and was sleeping. Abdullah was not around. He had gone with his Auntie Sara to their villa. I felt terribly alone in the world.

  I decided that I would go to the source of my worry. I walked to Amani’s bedroom, and when I heard the mumbling of her voice, I put my ear to the door and tried to understand the words she was saying. My daughter was praying, and her voice pleaded with God with an urgency that awakened my memory of another I had eavesdropped upon from behind a locked door. Suddenly the memory of that other voice in another time reminded me why I was so tormen
ted with anxiety. Lawand! Amani was praying with thesame sort of isolated longing I had often heard from the locked room of her cousin Lawand!

  The atmosphere that had surrounded Amani from the moment of our participation in the first ritual of the day had seemed vaguely familiar. Now, on this day, Lawand’s insanity had re-emerged in the chilling intensity of Amani’s eyes.

  I told myself that Amani was going the way of her cousin Lawand!

  While still a teenager, Lawand, who was a first cousin of Kareem on his father’s side of the family, had attended school in Geneva, Switzerland. Her parents’ decision to send her abroad for schooling proved a grievous mistake. While in Geneva, Lawand disgraced her family by becoming involved with several young men. In addition to her sexual involvements, Lawand became addicted to cocaine. While moving secretly out of her room one evening, Lawand was captured by the headmistress, who called her father in Saudi Arabia, demanding that he come and collect his wayward child.

  When the family found out about their daughter’s activities, Lawand’s father and two brothers flew to Geneva and took the girl to a Swiss drug rehabilitation center. Six months later, when her treatment was completed, she was brought back to Saudi Arabia. The family was exhausted with shame and fury, and as punishment they decided to confine Lawand to a small apartment in their home until they were satisfied that she had realized her reckless offense to Muslim life.

  When I heard the verdict, I could think of little but Sameera, the best friend of my sister Tahani. Sameera had been a brilliant and beautiful young woman when she was deprived of her freedom so long ago and forced into the dark prison of the woman’s room. While Lawand would one day secure her freedom, it seemed that only death would free Sameera from her incarceration.

  Within my limited sphere of expectations, I found myself thinking that Lawand was fortunate her father was not the unfeeling sort who could confine his daughter to life imprisonment, or to death by stoning, and I experienced sad relief instead of passionate anger.

  How fortunate is the human being who has no memories, for memories often remold the victim of oppression into the image of their oppressor! With terrifying seriousness, I listened as the men of my family mouthed the law of obedience, saying that the peaceful structure of our conservative society rested upon the perfect obedience of children to their parents and wives to their husbands. Without that obedience, anarchy would rule the day. The men of my family firmly stated that Lawand’s punishment was fair.

  I visited the family on many occasions, listening with profound sympathy to the grief of Lawand’s mother and her sisters. Often, the women of the family spoke with Lawand through the locked door. Initially, Lawand begged for forgiveness and pleaded with her mother to set her free.

  Sara and I smuggled notes of encouragement to our cousin, advising her to recall the wisdom of silence and to read the books and play the games female members of the family placed through the small opening that had been constructed for the delivery of food and for emptying the pail containing bodily wastes. But Lawand had little interest in occupying her time with quiet pursuits.

  After several weeks of confinement, Lawand returned to God and began to pray, declaring that she had seen the error of her ways and swearing to her parents that she would never again commit a single wrong.

  Taking great pity on her daughter, Lawand’s mother beseeched her husband to set the child free, saying that she felt certain Lawand would now return to the pious life.

  Lawand’s father suspected his daughter of deceit, since he had told her that her confinement would end when her mind once again embraced the proper thoughts of a believing Muslim.

  Before long, Lawand prayed all her waking moments, failing even to respond to our worried voices. I could easily see that Lawand was hallucinating, for she spoke to God in her prayers on an equal basis, shouting that she would represent him on earth, teaching his followers a new moral code of which only she, Lawand, had knowledge.

  After one particular visit, when Lawand’s mother and I over-heard her madly rejoicing in the confines of her room, I told Kareem that I was certain Lawand had lost her mind.

  Kareem spoke with his father, who in turn visited his brother’s home. As the eldest brother of Lawand’s father, Kareem’s father had authority over the family. On my father-in-law’s advice, Lawand’s father opened the locked door and released his daughter from her prison. Lawand would now be allowed to rejoin her family in a normal life.

  Lawand’s eleven-week confinement had ended, but the family tragedy ripened rapidly. During the course of her prison sentence, Lawand had disciplined herself to ascetic austerity, and came out of her imprisonment seething with Islamic fervor, claiming that a new day had dawned for Islam.

  On the day of her release, Lawand informed her family that all Muslims must denounce luxury and vice, and promptly pounced upon her two sisters for wearing kohl [black powder] on their eyes, rouge on their cheeks, and fingernail polish on their nails. After she made her sisters cower on the sofa, Lawand ripped an expensive necklace from her mother’s neck and rushed to throw the precious stones down the kitchen drain. The women of the house could barely restrain her, and the family disturbance resulted in various minor injuries. Lawand was given a shot by one of the palace physicians and a prescription for drugs to calm her mind.

  Violence hid its face for a while, but nevertheless survived, and from time to time Lawand would lash out with blunt passion, directing abuse at whoever was handy.

  After she ripped Sara’s gold earrings from my sister’s ears, shouting that to see such gleaming finery hurt the eyes of God, I thought to protect myself by purchasing a small canister of Mace while I was on holiday in the United States. I hid the item in my luggage, even from the eyes of Kareem, and began to carry it in a small bag when I visited Lawand’s home.

  As is my disastrous misfortune, Lawand selected an afternoon when I was paying a visit to demonstrate her renewed religious fervor.

  Lawand, her mother, two sisters, and I were having a pleasant chat while sipping tea, eating pastries, and discussing my last trip to America when Lawand suddenly became restless, her eyes flashing about, seeking some affront to God.

  In her temporarily disordered state, she began to criticize her mother’s choice of clothing, which Lawand stated was much too immodest for a believing Muslim. Fascinated, I watched as Lawand carefully folded her table napkin and very courteously covered her mother’s neck with the fabric. Then, without warning, Lawand began to curse. She made a sudden wild leap in the air, twisting her body in midair to face me.

  I saw that Lawand was eyeing my new pearl necklace, and remembered too late Kareem’s warning that I should not wear jewelry in her home.

  Lawand’s pale ascetic face, twisted in passionate and divine conviction, awed me, and I felt the acute danger that she posed. I quickly dug in my small bag and brought out the Mace, warning my cousin that she should quit the room or sit down immediately, or I would be forced to defend myself.

  Lawand’s mother began to scream and to tug on her mad daughter’s sleeve. I braced myself for an attack when Lawand pushed her pawing mother from her side and rushed at me, forcing me into a small corner between a lamp and a chair.

  The worst was yet to come. Sara, who had agreed to meet me at Lawand’s home, entered the villa at that exact moment. I saw that she held her youngest child in her arms.

  Sara’s jaw dropped when she saw that Lawand had cornered her youngest sister between a chair and a lamp, and that I was holding a weapon in my hand.

  Knowing Lawand’s weakness, Sara quickly regained her calm and subtly attempted to persuade Lawand to stop her foolishness. For a short moment Lawand, with feline deception, pretended to submit to Sara’s wisdom. She dropped her aggressive stance and began to rub her hands together in a nervous manner.

  Doubting her sincerity, I yelled for Sara to take her baby and run from the room! At the sound of my excited voice, Lawand swung about and then, with all the fury of on
e who is insane, bounded toward me with outstretched hands, making for my pearl necklace.

  I squeezed the Mace container with both hands and Lawand dropped to her knees. In the back of my mind, I remembered reading that it takes double power to disable the insane, so in my excitement, I emptied the container and maced not only Lawand, but her mother and one sister, who had come to Lawand’s aid.

  Lawand recovered from the Mace attack rapidly, but had lost her will to fight.

  Her father finally realized that his daughter needed long-term professional attention, which she received in France, enjoying a full recovery within a year’s time.

  Lawand’s mother and sister required immediate medical attention. The Pakistani physician summoned to treat the women had difficulty maintaining his professional seriousness, when informed that one royal princess had maced three other princesses who were members of her family.

  Everyone in Kareem’s family thought I had acted with too much haste, but I refused to let myself be crucified for defending myself against a woman who had lost her mind, and I told them so. Indignant, I added that instead of criticism, I deserved their appreciation for my deed, for the event had led to Lawand’s recovery.

  While there is a tendency among some to dismiss my actions as those of a female of excitable emotion, I am a woman of deadly seriousness when it comes to women’s issues.

  A wise man was once asked what was the most difficult truth in life to uncover. His reply was “to know thyself.” While others might harbor doubt, I know my own character. Undeniably, I have been endowed with an overabundance of spontaneity, and it is from this exuberance that I gain my power to do battle against those in command of females in my land. And I can claim some degree of success in bending the bonds of tradition.