Princess Sultana's Daughters

by Jean Sasson

  There was nothing else but to speak bluntly. The doctor verbalized what I already knew. “Prince Kareem. Your daughter and her friend Aisha are lovers.”

  Kareem was quiet for many minutes. When Kareem regained his senses, he had to be restrained and kept from Maha’s side for three days.

  *

  Muslims are taught that love and sex between two of the same is wrong, and the Koran forbids experimenting: “Do not follow what you do not know.” In Saudi Arabia, love and sex are considered distasteful, even between those of opposite sexes, and our society pretends that relationships based on sexual love do not exist. In this atmosphere of shame, Saudi citizens respond to social and religious expectations by saying exactly what is expected. What we do is another matter altogether.

  Arabs are by nature sensuous, yet we live in a puritanical society. The topic of sex is of interest to everyone, including our Saudi government, which spends enormous amounts of money employing countless censors. These men sit in government offices, searching out what they deem to be odious references to women and sex in every publication allowed into the kingdom. Rarely does a magazine or newspaper make it past the censors without losing a number of pages, or having sentences or paragraphs blacked out by the censor’s ever-ready pen.

  This form of extreme censorship against all conventional social behavior affects every aspect of our lives, and the lives of those who compete to claim our business.

  Asad, who is the younger brother of my husband and the husband of my sister Sara, once contracted with a foreign film company to make a simple food commercial for Saudi Arabian television. The manager of that foreign company was forced to adhere to a list of restrictions that would have been amusing had it not been authentic. The list of restrictions read:

  1. There can be no attractive females in the commercial.

  2. If a female is included, she cannot wear revealing clothing such as short skirts, pants, or swimming suits. No flesh can be exposed other than the face and hands.

  3. No two people can eat from the same dish, or drink from the same cup.

  4. There can be no fast body movement. (It is suggested in the contract that if a female is used, she has to sit or stand without moving at all.)

  5. There can be no winking.

  6. Kissing is taboo.

  7. There can be no burping.

  8. Unless it is absolutely necessary to sell the product (it is suggested) there should be no laughter.

  When the normal is forbidden, people fall into the abnormal. That, I believe, is what happened to my daughter.

  In my country it is prohibited by religious law for single men and women to see each other. While inside the country, men socialize with men, and women with women. Since we are prevented from engaging in traditional behavior, the sexual tension between those of the same sex is palpable. Any foreigner who has lived in Saudi Arabia for any length of time becomes aware that homosexual relations are rampant within the kingdom.

  I have attended many all-female concerts and functions where quivering beauties and suggestive behavior triumph over heavy veils and black abaayas. An orderly gathering of heavily perfumed and love-starved Saudi women festers into spontaneous exuberance, bursting forth in the form of a wild party with singing of forbidden love accompanied by lusty dancing. I have watched as shy-faced women danced lewdly with other women, flesh to flesh, face-to-face. I have heard women whisper of love and plan clandestine meetings while their drivers wait patiently in the parking lots. They will later deliver these women to their husbands who are that same evening being captivated by other men.

  While the conduct of men is overlooked, the behavior of women, even with other women, is often carefully guarded. This is made apparent by the various rules and regulations governing females. Some years ago I clipped a small item from one of our Saudi Arabian newspapers to show to my sisters. I was particularly irritated by yet another foolish restriction placed upon women. A ban on cosmetics had been announced in a girls’ school. Recently I ran across this clipping while throwing out some old papers. This article reads:

  --

  Cosmetics Ban in School

  The director of Girls’ Education at Al Ras, Abdullah Muhammad Al Rashid, urged all students and staff of the school under the directorate to refrain from using cosmetics, dyestuffs, ornaments, and other makeup inside the school compounds.

  The director added that some staff and students were noticed of late to have been using transparent garments and cosmetics as well as high-heeled shoes; hence, such adornments are prohibited. While the students must keep uniformity in dress, the teachers should set good examples to the students. The authorities would not hesitate to take punitive measures against violators of school regulations, Al Rashid added.

  --

  I remember well what I said to my sisters at the time. I waved the clipping angrily under their noses, raging, “See! See for yourself! The men of this country want to regulate the wearing of our shoes, the ribbons in our hair, the color of our lips!”

  My sisters, while their anger did not equal mine, sullenly complained that our men were obsessed with controlling every aspect of our lives, even that part of our daily living that was supposedly private.

  In my opinion, the control fanatics who govern our traditional lives had driven my daughter into the arms of a woman! While I was greatly distressed and did not condone my daughter’s relationship with another woman, I understood, in view of the harsh restrictions she had inherited by the mere fact of being born female, how she had come to seek solace with one of her own kind.

  Knowing the problem, I now felt more capable of seeking solutions.

  Kareem feared that Maha’s character was now marred by her experiences. As a mother, I could not agree. I told Kareem that Maha’s wanting to share her darkest secret with those who love her best pointed to her recovery.

  I was right in my assessment of the situation. After months of professional treatment, Maha was ready for maternal guidance. For the first time in her young life, she drew close to her mother, wanting to communicate, tearfully acknowledging that from her earliest memory she had hated all men but her father. She had no ready explanation for it.

  I felt a twinge of guilt, wondering if my own prejudices against the male sex had seeped into the embryo I had given life. It was as if my daughter had been forewarned of the wicked nature of men while lying cradled in my womb.

  Maha confessed that the early trauma she had endured on the occasion of her parents’ long separation had further eroded her trust in men. “What was so wrong with Father that we had to flee from his presence?” she asked.

  I knew that Maha was speaking of the time Kareem had tried to take a second wife. Not wishing to share my wifely status with another woman, I had fled the kingdom, fetching my children from summer camp in the Emirates and taking them with me to the French countryside. France, with its humane people who shelter those in distress, had seemed the perfect spot to protect my young while I negotiated for those long months with my husband over his scheme to wed another woman. How I had tried to shield my children from the trauma of my own failing marriage and our separation from Kareem!

  What folly! As a parent, I know now that it is preposterous to believe that even minor parental conflict does not interfere with the emotional well being of a child. Hearing Maha say that my actions had increased her mental pain, allowing abnormal thoughts to creep into her consciousness, caused me more anguish than any previous agony I have known. I had a moment of renewed anger at my husband, remembering the distress he had brought upon our three children.

  Maha confessed that even after Kareem and I had patched over our differences and brought our family together again, our continuing strife had pierced the safety of the cocoon in which my children dwelled.

  When I prodded my daughter about her relationship with Aisha, Maha confided that she had not known women could love women and men could love men. Such a possibility had never entered her mind, until the day Aisha
showed her some magazines she had taken from her father’s study. The magazines had displayed photograph after photograph of beautiful women in acts of female love. At first the photographs were a novelty, but later Maha came to see them as beautiful, sensing that the love between women was more tender and caring than the aggressive, possessive love of man for woman.

  There were other disturbing revelations.

  Aisha, a girl who had experimented with many social taboos before knowing my daughter, thought nothing of spying on her father’s sexual misdeeds. The girl had made a small peephole in the study adjoining her father’s bedroom. There, she and my daughter had watched as Aisha’s father deflowered one young virgin after another. Maha claimed that the cries of those young girls had closed her mind to wanting a relationship with a man.

  She told me an unbelievable tale that I would brush aside as fabrication had my own daughter not witnessed the event.

  Maha said that on one particular Thursday evening Aisha had telephoned her, urging her to come over quickly. Maha said that Kareem and I were out, so she’d had one of our drivers deliver her to Aisha’s home.

  Aisha’s father had gathered together seven young girls. Maha did not know if he had wed the girls or if they were concubines.

  My daughter watched as those young girls were made to prance naked around the room, each with a large peacock feather stuck up her backside. With these feathers, the girls were forced to fan and tickle the face of Aisha’s father. Over the course of a long night, the father had performed sex with five of the seven girls.

  Afterward, Maha and Aisha had stolen a feather and played together on Aisha’s bed, giggling and tickling each other’s bodies. It was then that Aisha showed Maha the pleasure women could have with one another.

  Ashamed of her love for Aisha, Maha cried in my arms, sobbing that she wanted to be a happy, well-adjusted girl with a productive life. She cried out, “Why am I different from Amani? We came from the same seed, but we have blossomed into different plants!” She screamed, “Amani is a beautiful rose! I am a prickly cactus.”

  Ignorant of the ways of God, I could not answer my child. I held her in my arms and comforted her with the thought that the remainder of her life would be that of a beautiful flower.

  Then my troubled daughter asked me the most difficult question of my life. “Mother, how can I ever love a man, knowing all that I know of their nature?”

  I had no ready answer, yet it was with profound happiness that I understood that Kareem and I had another chance with our daughter. It was time to go home to Riyadh. We did not leave before Kareem offered Maha’s British physician a position in Riyadh as our family’s personal doctor.

  Much to our amazement, the physician refused. “Thank you,” he said. “I am honored. Fortunately, or unfortunately, whichever is the case, my aesthetic sensibilities are too keen for Saudi Arabia.”

  Undaunted, Kareem insisted upon rewarding the doctor with a large sum of cash. He even went so far as to try to put the money into the man’s hand.

  Maha’s physician firmly waved aside the offer, uttering words that would have been a keen insult had they not been spoken softly. “My dear man, please, do not. The shallowness of wealth and power holds no appeal for me.”

  While staring in awe at one of the least prepossessing figures I have ever beheld, I suddenly had the answer to Maha’s earlier, unanswerable question! Later, I told Maha that she would one day meet a man deserving of her faithful love, for such men existed. She and I had met one in London.

  *

  Once we were back in Riyadh, the source of Maha’s knowledge of black magic was revealed. It was as I had thought. Noorah was the culprit.

  Maha told her father, in my presence, that it was her grandmother who had introduced her to the dark world of the occult. Confronted with Abdullah’s clothing wrapped around a charm, Maha denied wanting to cast a spell on her brother. Hoping that she had learned a great lesson, we did not press the issue.

  I desired nothing more than to confront my mother-in-law, spit in her face, and yank out her hair. Kareem, wisely recognizing the dangers of pent-up anger, refused to let me accompany him when he went to confront her about her misdeeds. Nevertheless, I did coax my unenthusiastic sister Sara into paying a visit to our mutual mother-in-law’s palace at the time of Kareem’s visit.

  Sara arrived at Noorah’s villa shortly after my husband. She waited in the garden for Kareem to leave. Sara said that she overheard Kareem’s shouts and Noorah’s pleas for mercy. Kareem forbade his mother to visit his children without supervision.

  Long after my husband had left, Sara said, Noorah’s moans of despair could be heard in the garden. “Kareem, most beloved, you came from my womb! Come back to your mother, who cannot live without your precious love.”

  Sara accused me of being as wicked as Noorah, for I radiated much happiness when she told me of my treacherous mother-in-law’s well-deserved wretchedness.

  Makkah

  “God, Great and Glorious is He, said: “And proclaim among men the pilgrimage, they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel, coming from every deep ravine.”

  —AL HAJ, 22:27

  There is no method to calculate the number of pious Muslims who have perished while making the grueling journey across the deserts of Saudi Arabia since the time of the Prophet Mohammed and the first pilgrimage, but the total is estimated to be in the thousands. While I am pleased to report that it is no longer necessary for devout Muslims to do battle with Bedouin raiding parties or even to travel through Saudi Arabia on foot or riding lean camels in order to fulfill their fervent desire to perform one of the basic tenants of Islam, the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Makkah, known as Mecca to Westerners, still remains a chaotic affair. Each year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims converge on the cities, airports, and highways of Saudi Arabia for the rite of pilgrimage during the time of Haj. (Haj begins in Dhu Al Qida, the eleventh month of the hejira calendar, and ends during Dhu Al Hijah, the twelfth month of the hejira calendar.)

  I performed the traditional pilgrimage many times in my youth, as a laughing child in my mother’s arms, and later as a rebellious girl seeking communication with my God, whom I prayed would bestow peace of mind on an unhappy child.

  To my great dismay, since Kareem and I wed, I had not wor- shiped in Makkah during the official time of Haj.

  While Kareem and I, along with our children, have made the Umrah, or the lesser pilgrimage, which can be made at any time of year, never had we joined the multitudes in the massive annual celebration of Haj, a time when Muslims remind themselves of the lessons of sacrifice, obedience, mercy, and faith, models of conduct that are required in the Islamic faith.

  Many times over the years, I emphasized to my husband that our children should experience the moving occasion of the pilgrimage during the designated time of Haj. Much to my chagrin, Kareem was forever adamant that our family flee the pandemonium of Saudi Arabia during the annual pilgrimage, which brings the largest and most concentrated gathering of human beings on earth into our country.

  Each time I requested of Kareem the justification for his non-performance of Haj, my husband would provide me with a multitude of lame explanations that were heavy with contradiction.

  Bewildered at his attitude and determined to get to the heart of the matter, I once purposely entangled Kareem in the discrepancy of his excuses, trapping him on the issue. Kareem was groping for a path out of his dilemma when I plainly told my husband, a man who believes in the God of Mohammed, that it seemed to me he abhorred the ritual that brings such joy to all Muslims. There was no other explanation for his bizarre behavior.

  I crossed my arms across my chest and waited for his response to this insulting charge, which demanded refutation.

  Kareem’s face swelled with revulsion at the accusation so vile to a Muslim! Shocked at such a scandalous idea, he swore to me that he did not abhor the pilgrimage!

  In the manner all men respond when they are
in the wrong, Kareem then yelled out, “Sultana, you are ugly to my eyes,” and turned his back on me as if to leave the room, but I ran around his side and with outstretched arms blocked the door with my body, demanding more specifics.

  I screamed out that I was displeased with what I had heard, and that I would wait forever for a compelling explanation of his annual flight from the Haj. Sensing that Kareem was in a position of weakness, I became reckless and added a small lie, saying, “Others have noticed your strange distaste for Haj, and people are beginning to talk.”

  When Kareem saw that I would not let him pass without using physical force, he stared down at me and hesitated for a long moment. I could see that he was examining and weighing the wisdom of his reply. Making a decision, he pulled me by the arm and forced me down on the side of the bed by pushing my shoulders with his hands. He paced for a short time to the balcony doors and back, and then his defenses fell.

  Kareem confessed in a rush that as a young man he had once suffered a realistic and terrifying nightmare that he was crushed to death in a crowd of Hajjis (people of the Muslim faith who attend Haj).

  I made a sound in my throat. Many baffling aspects of my husband’s behavior were now clear in my mind. Since the time I first met him, Kareem had seen crowds where there were none, interpreting the smallest groups of people as a mass of humanity. I shook my head at the perplexing intimacies of my husband’s inner life, which I had never known. So! Kareem was frightened of the masses of pilgrims!

  Being a strong believer in the powerful message of dreams, I turned my attention to Kareem’s words; my mood was grim as I listened to his vivid description of the imaginary yet frightening experience he had endured while sleeping.

  My husband’s face became pale as he graphically described the feeling of being asphyxiated under the trampling feet of frenzied worshipers. He told me that since the time of his dream, at age twenty-three, he had purposely avoided the congested conditions endured by the faithful in making the annual pilgrimage to Makkah.