Princess Sultana's Daughters

found. Perhaps
Maha will confide in him, then we will know who or what is behind
her knowledge of such matters.”
    Kareem nodded his head in agreement. For the
remainder of the flight, we took turns sleeping and watching our
child, who appeared in her drug-induced sleep as sweet as an angel.
For some unexplained reason, I was reminded of another Al Sa’ud
royal, Princess Misha’il, a young woman who hid her illicit love.
When her secret was discovered, my royal cousin’s life ended in
front of a firing squad.
    While Kareem slept, I watched Maha, and
remembered Princess Misha’il.
    Misha’il was the granddaughter of Prince
Mohammed ibn Abdul Aziz, the same Prince Mohammed who had been
passed over for the crown because of his father’s ruling that the
ferocious behavior of a warrior had no place on a throne.
    While I did not have a close friendship with
Misha’il, I had met her at various royal functions. She was known
in the family as a rather wild girl. I thought perhaps her unhappy
temperament was related to her marriage to an old man who failed to
satisfy her. Whatever it was, she was miserable and became
romantically involved with Khalid Muhalhal, who happened to be the
nephew of the special Saudi Arabian envoy to Lebanon.
    Their love affair was hot and filled with the
tension caused by the impossible social climate of Saudi Arabia.
Many members of the royal family had heard of their illicit
relationship, and when the young couple were on the brink of
discovery, they made a fatal decision to run off together.
    My oldest sister, Nura, was in Jeddah at the
time and heard the story firsthand from a member of Misha’il’s
immediate family. Misha’il, fearing the wrath of her family,
attempted to stage her own death. She told her family that she was
going for a swim at their private beach on the Red Sea. Misha’il
piled her clothes on the shore, then dressed herself as a Saudi man
and tried to flee the country.
    Unfortunately for Misha’il, her grandfather,
Prince Mohammed, was one of the shrewdest and most powerful men in
the country. He did not believe she had drowned. Officials manning
all exits from the country were alerted to search for the
granddaughter of Prince Mohammed. Misha’il was caught—intercepted
trying to catch a flight from the airport in Jeddah.
    Telephones were ringing all over the kingdom,
with each royal professing to know more than the next. There was a
rumor a minute. I heard that Misha’il had been set free and allowed
to leave the kingdom with her lover. Then I was told a divorce
would be granted. Later, a hysterical cousin called and claimed
that Misha’il had been beheaded, and that it had taken three blows
to separate her head from her body. Not only that, Misha’il’s lips
had moved and had called out her lover’s name, causing the
executioner to run from the scene! Can you imagine, my excited
cousin asked, words from a bodiless head!
    Finally, the very real and ugly truth was
made known. Prince Mohammed, in a fit of anger, said that his
granddaughter was an adulterer and that an adulterer should submit
to Islamic law. Misha’il and her lover were going to be
executed.
    King Khalid, who was our ruler during this
time of tragedy, was known for his indulgent nature. He recommended
that Prince Mohammed show mercy, but mercy was not an agreeable
emotion for that fierce bedouin.
    On the day of the execution, I waited with my
siblings for news. My sisters and I hoped for a last-minute
reprieve. Ali, not surprisingly, expressed the opinion that
adulterous women should submit to the laws of Islam and prepare
themselves for death.
    On that hot day in July of 1977, my cousin
Misha’il was blindfolded and forced to kneel before a pile of dirt.
She was shot by a firing squad. Her lover was forced to watch her
die. He was then beheaded with a sword.
    Once again, unsanctioned love had cost two
young people their lives.
    The affair was hushed up, and the Al Sa’ud
clan hoped that talk of a young woman murdered for the simple act
of love would soon disappear. It was not to be. Though buried in
the sands of the desert, Misha’il was not forgotten.
    Many Westerners will recall the documentary
about her death, called, appropriately, Death of a Princess .
As divided as our family was over her punishment, nothing compared
with the arguments and hostility generated by the film.
    Having comfortably mastered the role of
dictators, the men in our family grew furious over their inability
to