Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

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