by Jean Sasson
In Father’s mind, Sara had obviously provoked her husband into criminal behavior. It is never the fault of the man in the Middle East. Even if he murders his wife, the man will state “valid” reasons for his action, which will be accepted by other men without question. In my country, I have seen newspapers print articles that honor a man for executing his wife or daughter for the crime of “indecent behavior.” The mere suspicion of sexual misconduct, such as kissing, can bring death to a young girl. In addition, public congratulations are given from the men of religion for the father’s “notable” act of upholding the commands of the Prophet!
Nura and Ahmed were in the midst of constructing a palace and Nura wanted to travel to Europe to purchase Italian furnishings. On the way, we were to stop off in Egypt so that Nura’s young children could view the pyramids.
Father, with twenty-two daughters from four wives, was often overheard muttering, “Women are a man’s curse.” It did not help his attitude that his younger daughters were in a kind of rebellion against the absolute rule of men. Our talk and actions were unprecedented and unappreciated. Knowing full well we would never reach the heights we desired, our talk alone was a victory of sorts, for no Saudi women had ever approached the topics we discussed with such great abandon. Nura wanted Mother to go abroad with us, but Mother had been strangely quiet since Sara’s return. It was as if her one great rebellion against Father’s rule had drained her life’s blood. But she encouraged the trip, for she wanted Sara to see Italy. She thought I was too young and should stay home, but, as usual, a temper tantrum accomplished the result I wanted. Sara showed little interest, even in the possibility of seeing the artistic wonders of Italy, but I was out of control with happiness.
My joy was shattered by Ali’s smug announcement that he was going with us. Father thought I needed a chaperon. In an instant, I lost my mind at the thought of Ali’s treacherous presence ruining my vacation, and I was determined to insult him in the worst way. I grabbed his new ghutra (headdress) and igaal (black cord that rests on the top of the ghutra) and raced through the house to my bathroom. I had no notion of what I was going to do with them, but a Saudi man is highly offended if anyone even touches his headdress. I felt an urge to hurt Ali as quickly as possible.
When Ali followed, shouting that he would tell Father, I slammed the bathroom door on him. Since he was wearing sandals, Ali’s big toe was broken, and his hand was bruised. By his shouts and moans, the servants thought I was killing him. No one came to Ali’s rescue, though.
I don’t know what came over me, perhaps the sound of the big bully groaning and begging for sympathy, but I flushed his headdress down the toilet. The igaal would not flush, even as I frantically pushed it with the plunger. The sodden cord became stuck in the toilet! When Ali saw what I had done, he lunged for me. We were struggling on the floor when I got the best of him by pulling and twisting his broken toe. Mother, hearing Ali’s screams of agony, intervened and saved him from my years of pent-up wrath.
I knew I was in big trouble. I rationalized that my situation could not be any worse, so when Mother and Omar took Ali to the clinic to get his broken toe wrapped, I crept into his room and gathered up his secret hoard of “treasures” that were forbidden by both our religion and our country.
These “treasures” were the usual objects that all young boys collect the world over, but their possession is a serious offense under the law of religion in Arabia. Long before, I had located Ali’s
collection of Playboy and other similar magazines. Recently, I had discovered a new collection of photo slides. Curious, I had taken them to my bedroom; perplexed, I viewed them on the slide projector. Naked men and women were doing all kinds of strange things; one group of pictures even showed animals with women. Ali had obviously lent them to other boys on occasion, for he had clearly printed his name on every forbidden article.
I was too innocent at the time to know exactly what it all meant, but I knew these “treasures” were bad because he had always kept his secret cache stacked in the same old tattered box, labeled “school notes.” I was very familiar with his belongings, having sorted through his stuff for years. I carefully removed every magazine along with the photo slides. I also found seven miniature bottles of alcohol that Ali had brought home after a weekend trip to Bahrain. I smiled at my plan as I shoved everything in a paper bag.
In Saudi Arabia, mosques are built in every neighborhood, for the government has placed top priority on providing a mosque within walking distance of every Muslim male. With prayers to be offered five times a day, it is more convenient to complete all the prayers if a man is a short distance from the mosque. Even though prayers can be given at any location so long as the person faces Makkah, it is thought that access to a mosque is preferable.
Living in one of the wealthiest districts, we were served by a huge mosque, made of white opalescent marble. Since it was about two o’clock in the afternoon, I knew the noon prayers were over; it would be safe to carry out my plan without being seen. Even the men of religion nap in the hot climate of Arabia. I opened the mosque door with dread, and peeked in carefully before entering. Not yet veiled, I thought perhaps my presence would invite little curiosity. I already had my story ready in the event I was caught. If questioned, I would say I was hunting my new kitten that had wandered onto the mosque grounds. Surprisingly, the mosque was cool and inviting. I had never been inside the huge building, but I had followed my father and Ali to prayer many times. From the age of six, Ali had been encouraged to perform the five daily prayers. I felt my breath sharpen as I recalled the hurt I had felt as I watched my father hold Ali’s hand and lead him proudly through the grand entrance of the mosque—always leaving me, a lowly female, at the side of the road to stare after them in sorrow and anger.
Even though Prophet Mohammed did not forbid women to pray publicly in the mosques, he did state that it was best for them to pray in the privacy of their homes. Due to this, women are forbidden entry into neighborhood mosques in my country, although on certain holidays they are allowed in the mosques in Makkah and Madinah. No one was around. I hurriedly walked across the marble floor; the clicking of my sandals sounded loud and strange. I placed the bag containing Ali’s forbidden articles on the stairwell leading to the balcony that contains the loudspeakers that broadcast Prophet Mohammed’s words throughout our cities five times a day. Just thinking of the intensity of the appeals of the muezzin, the criers who call the faithful to pray, I began to feel guilty about my misadventure. Then I remembered Ali’s superior smirk as he told me that Father would have me flogged, and that he, Ali, would request the pleasure of beating me. I walked back home with a satisfied grin. Let Ali get out of this one, for once. That night, before Father came home from the office, three mutawas (religious men) arrived at our gate. I, and three of our Filipino servants peered through one of the upstairs windows as we watched them shout at Omar and gesture wildly at the heavens and then toward some books and magazines that they obviously held in distaste. I wanted to laugh, but kept my face straight and serious.
All foreigners and most Saudis are frightened of the mutawas, for they have much power, and they watch everyone for signs of weakness. Even members of the Royal Family try to avoid their attention.
Two weeks before, one of our Filipino maids had inflamed some mutawas by wearing a knee-length skirt in the souq. A group of religious men struck her with a stick and sprayed her uncovered legs with red paint. While the government of Saudi Arabia does not allow tourists to enter our country, there are many women who work as nurses, secretaries, or domestic help in our major cities. Many of these women feel the wrath of those who speak God’s word yet despise those of our sex. If a woman is so bold as to defy our traditions by exposing uncovered arms or legs, she runs the risk of being struck and sprayed with paint.
This maid had soaked her legs in paint remover, but they were still red and raw-looking. She was convinced that somehow the religious police had traced her to her residence
, and now they had come to take her to jail. She ran to hide under my bed. I wanted to tell her the nature of their visit, but my secret had to be guarded, even from the Filipino servants.
Omar was absolutely pallid when he came into the villa screaming for Ali. I saw Ali scuffling down the hallway, gingerly walking with the top of his right foot high in the air while balancing on his heel. I followed and gathered with Mother and Ali in the sitting room, where Omar was on the phone, dialing Father in his office. The mutawas had left, entrusting Omar with samples of the incriminating contraband: one magazine, several photo slides, and one miniature bottle of liquor. The rest they kept as evidence of Ali’s guilt. I glanced at Ali and saw his face drain of blood when he saw his “secret treasures” spread out in disarray on Omar’s lap.
Catching sight of me, Omar asked me to leave the room, but I clung to my mother’s skirts and she patted me on the head. Mother must have hated the way Omar bossed her children and she looked defiantly into his eyes. He decided to ignore me. He told Ali to sit down, that Father was on his way home and the mutawas had gone to get the police. Ali was going to be arrested, he announced with booming certainty.
The silence in the room was like the calm before a tempest. For a short moment, I was terrified, and then Ali regained his composure and practically spat at Omar, declaring, “They cannot arrest me, I am a prince. Those religious fanatics are nothing more than pesky mosquitoes at my ankles.” The sudden thought came to me that jail might not do Ali harm.
The squealing of Father’s brakes signaled his arrival. Rushing into the room barely controlling his anger, he picked up the forbidden articles, one by one. When he saw the magazine, he looked hard at Ali. He threw the whiskey aside with contempt, for all the princes have liquor in their homes. But when Father held the slide up to the lamplight, he screamed for Mother and me to leave the room. We could hear him striking Ali with his hands.
All in all, it had been a bad day for Ali.
The mutawas must have thought better of calling the police to arrest one of the royal sons, for they returned in a few hours with little besides pious fury leading their way. But even Father had a difficult time with the mutawas in excusing the slides of women copulating with animals.
The year was 1968, and King Faisal was not as tolerant of the misdeeds of the young princes as had been his elder brother, Sa’ud. The mutawas felt they were in a position of power, for both they and Father knew that his uncle, the king, would be outraged if the contents of the slides became common knowledge. The fears of the mutawas were well known regarding the present course of modernization of our land. King Faisal constantly cautioned his brothers and cousins to control their children to avoid the wrath of the religious men upon the heads of the royal men who ruled. The king assured the religious elders that he was leading our country into needed modernization, not degenerate Westernization (the best, not the worst, of the West). The mutawas saw proof of the decadent West in the behavior of the royals. Ali’s slide collection did nothing to put their minds at ease about the whispered decadence of the Royal Family.
We heard the mutawas argue long into the night over an appropriate punishment for the son of a prince. Ali was lucky to be a member of the family of Al Sa’uds. The mutawas knew that unless the king gave his approval, no royal prince would be charged in the country’s court system. Rarely, if ever, did such an event occur. But if Ali were a member of a common Saudi family or a member of the foreign community, he would have been ordered to serve a long prison sentence.
Our family was all too familiar with the sad story of the brother of one of our Filipino drivers. Four years ago, the brother, who worked for an Italian construction firm in Riyadh, had been arrested for possessing a pornographic film. The poor man was now serving a seven-year prison sentence. Not only was he languishing in prison, but he was ordered to endure ten lashes every Friday. Our driver, who visited his brother every Saturday, wept as he told Ali that every time he saw his poor brother, the man was black from his neck to his toes from the lashings of the previous day. He feared his brother would not live out the coming year.
Unfortunately for Ali, his guilt was established without a doubt—his name was boldly printed on every forbidden item. In the end, a compromise of sorts was made: Father gave a huge sum of money to the mosque, and Ali had to be present for prayers five times each day to appease the men of God, along with God himself. The mutawas knew that few of the younger royal princes bothered to go to prayer at all, and that such a punishment would be especially irksome to Ali. He was told he would have to show his face to the head mutawa in our mosque at every prayer for the next twelve months. His only excuse would be if he were out of the city. Since Ali generally slept until nine o’clock, he frowned at the mere thought of the sun-up prayer. In addition, he had to write one thousand times on a legal pad: “God is great, and I have displeased him by running after the corrupt and immoral ways of the Godless West.” As a final condition, Ali was told he would have to reveal the name of the person who had supplied him with the slides and magazines. As it was, Ali had slipped in the magazines from trips abroad since a prince is ushered through customs with only a courtesy glance. But a Westerner he had befriended at a party had sold him the slides, and Ali, eager for a foreign villain to take the pressure off him, happily supplied the mutawas with the Westerner’s name and work address. We would later learn that the man had been arrested, flogged, and deported.
I felt terrible. My stupid prank had disgraced my entire family with a stinging humiliation. I did not think the lesson would harm Ali, but I knew my parents had been affected and other innocent people would be injured. Also, I am ashamed to admit, I was petrified that my guilt would be discovered. I prayed to God that if he would let me escape capture this once, from that day forward I would be a perfect child.
Omar led the mutawas out of our grounds. Mother and I waited for Father and Ali to return to the family sitting room. Father was breathing loudly and gripped Ali by his upper arm, pushing him toward the stairway. Ali looked my way and our eyes met. A moment, a flash of realization, and I understood that he had concluded I was the guilty party. Sadly, I saw that he looked more hurt than angry.
I began to sob, for I felt the weight of the terrible deed I had committed. Father looked at me in pity. Then he shoved Ali and screamed that he had upset the entire family, including the innocent children. For the first time in my life, my father came and held me in his arms and told me not to worry. I was now truly miserable. The touch that I had been longing for all my life now felt barren, and the joy I had so often imagined was destroyed in the elusive prize so wrongly taken. My misdeed had accomplished my target, however. No mention was ever made of Ali’s broken toe, or the toilet clogged with Ali’s headdress. One sin had so outweighed the other that they ended up canceling each other out.
Chapter Six: The Trip
Despite the recent family turmoil, the trip to Italy and Egypt was still planned, but my heart was no longer joyful. I organized my suitcase and made my lists as I watched Ali warily trudge by my bedroom door. In the past, Ali had given me little thought. I was scorned as a girl, someone to antagonize or push about occasionally—a person of little worth. He looked at me differently now, for he had made the surprising discovery that I, a lowly female and the youngest member of the family, was a dangerous and worthy opponent.
On the day of our departure, six limousines were needed to transport us to the airport. Eleven of us were traveling for four weeks: Nura and Ahmed, with three of their five children; two of their Filipino maids; Sara and myself; and Ali and his friend Hadi. Two years older than Ali, Hadi was a student at the Religious Institute, a boys’ school in Riyadh for those young men who aspired to become mutawas. Hadi impressed adults by quoting the Koran and acting very pious in their presence. My father felt confident that Hadi would have a good influence on his children. To those who would listen, Hadi loudly expressed his viewpoint that all women should be confined to the home; he told Ali tha
t women were the cause of all evil on earth. I could tell it was going to be a pleasant and enjoyable trip with both Ali and Hadi around.
Mother did not accompany us to the airport. For the past few days, she had been listless and sad; I assumed Ali’s antics had worried her. She said her farewells in the garden and waved us off from the front gate. She was veiled, but I knew tears were falling on her face. Something was amiss with Mother, I felt, but I had no time to dwell on the possibilities as the prospect of this exciting trip lay ahead of us.
Ahmed had recently purchased a new plane, so our flight was strictly a family affair. I looked to see if the two Americans who had flown Mother and me to Jeddah were piloting; disappointed, I saw they were not. Two British pilots were in the cockpit and they looked friendly enough. The Royal Family hired a large number of American and British citizens as private pilots. Ahmed conferred with the two men while Nura and the maids settled in with her three little ones.
Sara, her veil now removed, was already bundled in a blanket, clutching her precious books. Hadi looked with distaste at her uncovered face and whispered angrily to Ali, who in turn ordered Sara to replace her veil until we left Saudi Arabia. Sara told Ali she could not see to read through the thick fabric, and if he were smart he would shut his ugly mouth.
Even before we had left the ground there was already a family squabble. I tried to stamp on Ali’s sore toe but missed, and Ali took a swipe at my head; I ducked and he missed. Ahmed, as the oldest male authority figure, shouted at everybody to sit down and be quiet. He and Nura exchanged a look that let me know they were already rethinking the wisdom of their generous invitation. The three holiest spots in Islam are Makkah, Madinah, and Jerusalem. Makkah is the city that captures the hearts of more than a billion Muslims scattered over the globe, for it was there that God revealed his will to his Prophet, Mohammed. The foundations of our religious life are five ritual obligations, called the pillars of religion. One of these obligations requires that every Muslim with the financial ability must attend Haj. No good Muslim feels complete without making the pilgrimage to Makkah at least once in his lifetime.
