Princess Sultana's Daughters

by Jean Sasson

  There is a strain of sympathy in my thoughts, for what human would not feel pain and fury at public notification of their weakest traits. I fight the emotion, forcing myself to recall the activities of my husband that led to my own pain and grief so vividly portrayed in the book.

  I am in a dilemma, knowing not whether to laugh or to cry.

  Kareem solves the problem for me with his exaggerated behavior. My husband waves his arms and stomps his feet. I’m reminded of the Egyptian puppet show I had attended the previous week at my sister Sara’s palace, a hilarious event featuring puppets in full Saudi dress. The closer I look, the more Kareem resembles Goha, a lovable but eccentric imaginary figure in the Arab world. Goha the puppet had been his usual foolish self in the play, prancing across the stage, disentangling himself from complex situations.

  My lips quiver with the urge to laugh. At any moment now, I expect my husband to fall to the floor and throw a childish temper tantrum.

  “He swore, he blushed with shame; I thought perhaps he was angered by his inability to control his wife.”

  Kareem glares hatefully at me. “Sultana! Do not dare smile! I am truly angry.”

  Still battling conflicting emotions, I shrug. “Do you deny that what you are reading is the truth?”

  Ignoring my words, Kareem foolishly continues to seek out the most damning passages concerning his character, reminding his wife of the particular traits of her husband’s temperament that had led her to leave him years ago.

  Actually shrieking, he reads aloud, “How I yearned to be wed to a warrior, a man with the hot flame of righteousness to guide his life.”

  His rage growing with every word, Kareem holds the book under my nose and points with a finger to the words that he deems most insulting, “Six years ago, Sultana was stricken with a venereal disease; after much distress, Kareem admitted that he participated in a weekly adventure of sex with strangers... After the scare of the disease, Kareem promised he would avoid the weekly tryst, but Sultana says she knows that he is weak in the face of such a feast, and that he continues to indulge himself without shame. Their wonderful love has vanished except in memory; Sultana says she will stand with her husband and continue her struggle for the sake of her daughters.”

  Kareem is so angry at that particular revelation that I fear he will start weeping. My husband accuses me of “poisoning paradise,” claiming that, “our lives are perfect.”

  Admittedly, over the past year I have regained some of my earlier love and trust of Kareem, but it is at moments such as this that my dismay grows over the cowardice of the men of our family. I realize from his behavior that Kareem gives not a thought to the reasons I risked my safety and our happiness to make known the events of my life, or to the very real and tragic events ending the lives of young and innocent women in his own land. Kareem’s only concern is for how he is portrayed in the book, and for the fact that he has fared poorly in many passages.

  I tell my husband that he and other men of the Al Sa’ud family alone hold the power to make change in our country. Slowly, quietly, in their subtle manner, they can pursue and encourage change. When he makes no response to my plea, I understand that the men of the Al Sa’ud family cannot risk their power for the sake of their women. They are passionately in love with the crown.

  Kareem regains his composure after I remind him that no one outside our family, other than the author, knows who he is! And those persons know him well and are aware of his good and bad traits, even without the publication.

  Kareem sits beside me and lifts my chin with his finger. He looks almost appealing as he ponders, “You told Jean Sasson about the disease I caught?”

  I wiggle in shame as Kareem slowly shakes his head from side to side, visibly disappointed in his wife. “Is nothing sacred to you, Sultana?”

  Many battles end in an outpouring of goodwill. This evening ends with unexpected displays of affection. Strangely, Kareem says he has never loved me more.

  I find myself being courted by my husband, and the intensity of my feelings increases. My husband reawakens the desire I had once deemed forever lost. I wonder at my own ability to both love and hate the same man.

  Later, as Kareem sleeps, I lie awake by his side and replay in my mind, moment by moment, the events of the day. I realize that despite the evening’s end—the guarantee of protection promised by my family (due solely to their own fears of royal banishment and/or punishment) and the renewal of my marriage—I cannot rest peacefully until genuine social adjustment comes to the land I love for the women whose burden I share. The hard necessities of female life are pushing me to continue my efforts to gain personal freedom for the women of Arabia.

  I question myself: Am I not the mother of two daughters? Do I not owe my daughters and their daughters after them every effort to bring transformation?

  I smile, once again thinking back on the puppet skit I had watched with Sara’s youngest children, and I recall the words of the funny but wise puppet Goha. “Does a faithful saluki [desert dog] stop barking in his master’s defense when a single bone is thrown his way?”

  I shout, “No!” Kareem stirs and I rub the back of his head, whispering sweet words, lulling my husband back to sleep.

  I know at that moment that I will not keep the pledge I made under coercion. I will let the world community decide when I should return to silence. Until people choose to close their ears to the plight of women in despair, I will continue to reveal the true happenings behind the secrecy of the black veil. This is to be my destiny.

  I make a decision. In spite of the promises I made under threat of detention, when I next travel out of the kingdom I will contact my friend Jean Sasson. There is more to be accomplished.

  When I close my eyes to sleep, I am a more focused but much sadder woman than the Sultana who had awakened the previous morning, for I know that I am once again entering a risky arena, and even though my punishment—and possibly even my death— will be cruel, failure will be more bitter, for failure is everlasting.

  Maha

  The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.

  —TAO TE CHING

  Those whom Kareem and I love best have proved the worst. Abdullah, our son and firstborn, troubles us; Maha, our eldest daughter, frightens us; while Amani, our youngest daughter, puzzles us.

  I felt no prophecies of doom as our only son, Abdullah, smiled with boyish happiness when he recounted with relish his wonderful success on the soccer field. Kareem and I were entranced, as most parents would be, upon hearing the successful exploits of a well-loved child. From a young age, Abdullah was seldom sur- passed in physical games, and this fact was a particular source of glee for his athletic father. While listening with pride, we took no note of his younger sisters, Maha and Amani, who were amusing themselves with a video game.

  When Amani, our youngest child, began to scream in alarm, it was with a terrible shock that Kareem and I saw flames licking at Abdullah’s clothing.

  Our son was on fire!

  Acting on instinct, Kareem quickly threw our son to the floor and extinguished the flames by rolling Abdullah in a Persian carpet. After we assured ourselves that our son was unharmed, Kareem tried to find the source of the unexplainable fire.

  I cried out that the fire was caused by an evil eye, that we were too boastful of our beautiful son!

  Fighting back tears, I turned to comfort my daughters. Poor Amani! Her small frame was wracked with sobs. While I held my baby, I motioned with my free arm to her older sister, Maha, to come to me. Suddenly, I drew back in horror, for Maha’s face was a frightful mask of anger and hate.

  Investigating the confusing incident, we learned a terrible truth: Maha had set her brother’s thobe on fire.

  Maha, meaning “She Gazelle,” has not fulfilled the promise of her gentle name. From the time she was ten, it has been apparent that our eldest daughter is possessed by the demonic energy of her mother. Often I have thought that there must be a battleground
of good and evil spirits hovering over Maha, with evil spirits usually overpowering the good. Neither her life amid imperial splendor nor the unconditional love of a devoted family has tempered Maha’s spirit.

  Without justification, she has tormented her brother, Abdullah, and her younger sister, Amani, for as long as they both can remember. Few children have brought so many crises to one family as Maha.

  In appearance, Maha is a stunningly attractive girl, with a frighteningly seductive personality. She has the look of a Spanish dancer, all eyes and hair. Combined with this great beauty is a gifted mind. Ever since her birth, it seemed to me that too many blessings had been bestowed upon my eldest daughter. With so many abilities, Maha is unable to focus on one goal, and lacking a unifying purpose, she has failed to harness her talents in any one direction. Over the years, I have watched as a hundred promising projects have been started and then abandoned.

  Kareem once said he feared that our daughter was nothing more than a girl of brilliant fragments, and would fail to accomplish one single goal in her lifetime. My greatest concern is that Maha is revolutionary seeking a cause.

  As I too am such a person, I am aware of the turmoil raised by a mutinous character.

  In her earlier years, the problem seemed simple. Maha loved her father to distraction. The intensity of her feelings increased with her years.

  Whereas Kareem adored his two daughters as he did his one son, and strove to avoid the resentments I endured as a child, the makeup of our society drew Abdullah more closely into Kareem’s life outside of our home. This basic fact of our Muslim heritage was the first shock of Maha’s young life.

  Maha’s intense jealousy of her father’s affections brought to mind my own unhappy childhood—a young girl who had chaffed under the harsh social system into which she was born. For that reason, I failed to comprehend the seriousness of my child’s discontent.

  After Maha set fire to Abdullah’s thobe, we knew that her possessiveness of Kareem went far beyond normal daughterly affection. Maha was ten years old and Abdullah was twelve. Amani was only seven, but she had watched her sister slip away from their game, fetch her father’s gold lighter, and set fire to the edge of Abdullah’s thobe. Had Amani not cried out a warning, Abdullah could have been seriously burned.

  The second shocking incident occurred when Maha was only eleven. It was the hot month of August. Our family had left the sweltering desert city of Riyadh and gathered at my sister Nura’s summer palace in the cool mountain city of Taif. It was the first time in years that Father had attended a gathering of his first wife’s children, and his attentions were devoted to his grandsons. While admiring Abdullah’s height and figure, my father ignored Maha, who was tugging on his sleeve to show him an ant farm the children had built and proudly displayed. I saw Father as he brushed her aside and proceeded to squeeze Abdullah’s biceps.

  Maha was stung by her grandfather’s preference for her brother and his indifference to her. My heart plunged for the pain I knew was in her heart.

  Knowing Maha’s capability for creating a scene, I walked over to comfort my daughter just as she assumed a masculine stance and began to curse my father with fiery invectives of the coarsest indecency, peppered with vile accusations.

  From that moment, the family gathering rapidly declined. Though humiliated, I had the quick thought that Maha had expressed to my father his manifest due.

  Father, who had never held a high opinion of the female sex, made no pretense of his feelings now. Scornfully, he ordered, “Remove this horrible creature from my sight!”

  I saw plainly that my daughter had awakened Father’s contempt for me. His eyes were penetrating, and his lips were curled in scorn as he looked from his daughter to his granddaughter. I overheard him mutter to no one in particular, “A mouse can only give birth to a mouse.”

  In the blink of an eye, Kareem snatched Maha from Father’s sight and took her squirming and cursing into the villa to wash out her mouth with soap. Her muffled cries could be heard in the garden.

  Father left soon after, but not before announcing to the entire family that my daughters were doomed by my blood.

  Little Amani, who is too sensitive for such accusations, collapsed into hysterics.

  My father has not acknowledged the existence of either daughter since that day.

  Maha’s belligerence and hostility did not prevent her from occasional bouts of kindness and sensitivity, and her temperament cooled somewhat after the incident in Taif. My daughter’s angers ebbed and flowed. In addition, Kareem and I doubled our efforts to assure both our daughters that they were as loved and esteemed as our son. While this proved fruitful in our home, Maha could not ignore the fact that she was considered less worthy than her brother in the world outside our walls. It is a distressing habit of all Saudi Arabians, including my own family and Kareem’s, to pour attention and affection on the heads of male children, while ignoring female children.

  Maha was a bright girl who was hard to deceive, and the uncompromising facts of Arab life burned into her consciousness. I had strong premonitions that Maha was a volcano that would one day erupt.

  Like many a modern parent, I had no clear notion of how to help my most troubled child.

  *

  Maha was only fifteen during the Gulf War, a time that no Saudi Arabian is likely to forget. Change was in the air, and no one was more tempted by the promise of female liberation than my eldest daughter. When our veiled plight peaked the curiosity of numerous foreign journalists, many educated women of my land began to plan for the day when they could burn their veils, discard their heavy black abaayas, and steer the wheels of their own automobiles.

  I, myself, was so caught up in the excitement that I failed to notice that my oldest daughter had become involved with a teenage girl who took her idea of liberation to the extreme.

  The first time I met Aisha I was uncomfortable—and not because she was unrelated to the royal family, for I, myself, had cherished friends outside the circle of royalty. Aisha was from a well-known Saudi Arabian family that had made its fortune importing furniture into the kingdom to sell to the numerous foreign companies that had to stock large numbers of villas for the swarm of expatriate workers invading Saudi Arabia.

  I thought the girl was too old for her years. Only seventeen, shelooked much more mature, and acted in a tough manner that smelled of trouble.

  Aisha and Maha were inseparable, with Aisha spending many hours at our home. Aisha had an unusual amount of freedom for a Saudi girl. Later, I discovered that she was virtually ignored by her parents, who seemed not to care about their daughter’s whereabouts.

  Aisha was the oldest of eleven children, and her mother, the only legal wife of her father, was embroiled in a never-ending domestic dispute with her husband over the fact that he took advantage of a little-used Arab custom called mut’a, which is a “marriage of pleasure,” or a “temporary marriage.” Such a marriage can last from one hour to ninety-nine years. When the man indicates to the woman that the temporary arrangement is over, the two part company without a divorce ceremony. The Sunni sect of Islam, which dominates Saudi Arabia, considers such a practice immoral, condemning the arrangement as nothing more than legalized prostitution. Still, no legal authority would deny a man the right to such an arrangement.

  As an Arab woman belonging to the Sunni Muslim sect, Aisha’smother protested the intrusion of the temporary, one-night or one-week brides her depraved husband brought into their lives. The husband, disregarding the challenge of his wife, claimed validation through a verse in the Koran that says, “You are permitted to seek out wives with your wealth, indecorous conduct, but not in fornication, but give them a reward for what you have enjoyed of them in keeping with your promise.” While this verse is interpreted by the Shiite sect of the Muslim faith as endorsement of the practice, these temporary unions are not common with Sunni Muslims. Aisha’s father was the exception in our land, rather than the rule, in embracing the freedom to wed young w
omen for the sole pleasure of sex.

  Occupied by the plight of helpless girls and women in my land, I questioned Aisha closely about the indecent practice I had heard discussed by a Shiite woman from Bahrain whom Sara had met and befriended in London some years before.

  It seemed that Aisha’s father did not desire the responsibility of supporting four wives and their children on a permanent basis, so he sent his trusted assistant on monthly trips into Shiite regions in and out of Saudi Arabia to negotiate with various impoverished families for the right of temporary marriages with their virginal daughters. Such a deal could easily be struck with a man who had four wives, many daughters, and little money.

  Aisha sometimes befriended these young girls, who were transported into Riyadh for a few nights of horror. After Aisha’s father’s passion waned, the young brides were sent away, returned to their families wearing gifts of gold and carrying small bags filled with cash. Aisha said that most of the youthful brides were no more than eleven or twelve years old. They were from poor families and were uneducated. She said they seemed not to know what exactly was happening to them. All the girls understood was that they were very frightened, and that the man Aisha called Father did very painful things to them. Aisha said all of the girlscried to be returned to their mothers.

  The hard-eyed Aisha wept as she related the story of Reema, a young girl of thirteen who had been brought to Saudi Arabia from Yemen, a poverty-stricken country that is home to a large number of Shiite Muslim families. Aisha said Reema was as beautiful as the deer for which she was named, and as sweet as any girl she had ever known.

  Reema was from a nomadic tribe that roamed the harsh land of Yemen. Her father had only one wife, but twenty-three children, of whom seventeen were girls. Even though Reema’s mother was now shriveled and bent from childbearing and hard work, she had once been a lovely girl and had given birth to seventeen beautiful daughters. Reema proudly said that her family was known as far away as San’a, the capital of Yemen, for the beauty of their women.