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

neighboring tribes.
    In 1891, disaster struck when the Al Sa’ud
clan was defeated in battle and forced to flee the Nadj. Abdul
Aziz, who would one day be my grandfather, was a child at this
time. He barely survived the hardships of that desert flight.
Later, he would recall how he burned with shame as his father
ordered him to crawl into a large bag that was then slung over the
saddle horn of his camel. His sister, Nura, was cramped into
another bag hanging from the other side of their father’s camel.
Bitter that his youth prevented him from fighting to save his home,
the angry young man peered from the bag as he swayed with the gait
of the camel. It was a turning point in his young life, he would
later recall, as he, humiliated by his family’s defeat, watched the
haunting beauty of his homeland disappear from view.
    After two years of nomadic desert travel, the
family of Al Sa’uds found refuge in the country of Kuwait. The life
of a refugee was so distasteful to Abdul Aziz that he vowed from an
early age to recapture the desert sands he had once called home. So
it was that in September 1901, twenty-five-year-old Abdul Aziz
returned to our land. On January 16, 1902, after months of
hardship, he and his men soundly defeated his enemies, the
Rasheeds.
    In the years to follow, to ensure the loyalty
of the desert tribes, Abdul Aziz married more than three hundred
women, who in time produced more than fifty sons and eighty
daughters. The sons of his favorite wives held the honor of favored
status; these sons, now grown, are at the very center of power in
our land. No wife of Abdul Aziz was more loved than Hassa Sudairi.
The sons of Hassa now head the combined forces of Al Sa’uds to rule
the kingdom forged by their father. Fahd, one of these sons, is now
our king. Many sons and daughters married cousins of the prominent
sections of our family such as the Al Turkis, Jiluwis, and Al
Kabirs. The present-day princes from these unions are among
influential Al Sa’uds. Today, in 1991, our extended family consists
of nearly twenty-one thousand members. Of this number,
approximately one thousand are princes or princesses who are direct
descendants of the great leader, King Abdul Aziz.
    I, Sultana, am one of these direct
descendants. My first vivid memory is one of violence. When I was
four years old, I was slapped across the face by my usually gentle
mother. Why? I had imitated my father in his prayers. Instead of
praying to Makkah, I prayed to my six-year-old brother, Ali. I
thought he was a god. How was I to know he was not? Thirty-two
years later, I remember the sting of that slap and the beginning of
questions in my mind: If my brother was not a god, why was he
treated like one? In a family of ten daughters and one son, fear
ruled our home: fear that cruel death would claim the one living
male child; fear that no other sons would follow; fear that God had
cursed our home with daughters. My mother feared each pregnancy,
praying for a son, dreading a daughter. She bore one daughter after
another—until there were ten in all.
    My mother’s worst fear came true when my
father took another, younger wife for the purpose of giving him
more precious sons. The new wife of promise presented him with
three sons, all stillborn, before he divorced her. Finally, though,
with the fourth wife, my father became wealthy with sons. But my
elder brother would always be the firstborn, and, as such, he ruled
supreme. Like my sisters, I pretended to revere my brother, but I
hated him as only the oppressed can hate.
    When my mother was twelve years old, she was
married to my father. He was twenty. It was 1946, the year after
the great world war that interrupted oil production had ended. Oil,
the vital force of Saudi Arabia today, had not yet brought great
wealth to my father’s family, the Al Sa’uds, but its impact on the
family was felt in small ways. The leaders of great nations had
begun to pay homage to our king. The British prime minister,
Winston Churchill, had presented King Abdul Aziz with a luxurious
Rolls Royce. Bright green, with a throne-like backseat, the
automobile sparkled like a jewel in the sun. Something about the
automobile, as grand as it was, obviously disappointed the king,
for upon inspection, he gave it to one of his favorite brothers,
Abdullah.
    Abdullah, who was my father’s uncle and close
friend, offered him this automobile for his honeymoon trip to
Jeddah. He accepted, much to the delight of my mother,