Read Princess Sultana's Daughters for Free Online

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 women 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