Princess Sultana's Daughters

completed for the first day
of Haj. We then returned to our palace in Jeddah, which is situated
on the waters of the Red Sea. During the drive, in an attempt to
put the experience of the trampled men out of our minds, each of us
shared our profound experiences of the day. Only Amani was
strangely quiet and withdrawn.
    I thought to myself that there was something
perplexing about my youngest child’s demeanor.
    The feeling of impending doom would not leave
me, and once we were back in our home, I followed Kareem around
until I could focus my thoughts and articulate what was in my heart
and on my mind. I accompanied him from the entrance hall to our
bedroom and out onto the balcony, then back into the bedroom and
into his library.
    An abyss divided our moods. Looking at me in
exasperation, Kareem finally asked, “Sultana, what can I do for
you?”
    Unsure of what my concerns were, I had
difficulty expressing myself. “Have you noticed your daughter Amani
today?” I asked. “Amani is worrying me. I feel that a strange mood
is oppressing our daughter. I do not like it.”
    In a weary tone, my husband insisted,
“Sultana, cease to view danger where there is none. She is at Haj.
Do you not believe that all pilgrims are engrossed in special
thought?” He paused and then added in a malicious tone, “Other than
you, Sultana.” Kareem then stood silent, but he gave me a withering
look that spoke clearly of his desire for solitude. Irritated, I
left Kareem in his library. I searched for Maha, but she had
retired to her bedroom and was sleeping. Abdullah was not around.
He had gone with his Auntie Sara to their villa. I felt terribly
alone in the world.
    I decided that I would go to the source of my
worry. I walked to Amani’s bedroom, and when I heard the mumbling
of her voice, I put my ear to the door and tried to understand the
words she was saying. My daughter was praying, and her voice
pleaded with God with an urgency that awakened my memory of another
I had eavesdropped upon from behind a locked door. Suddenly the
memory of that other voice in another time reminded me why I was so
tormented with anxiety. Lawand! Amani was praying with thesame sort
of isolated longing I had often heard from the locked room of her
cousin Lawand!
    The atmosphere that had surrounded Amani from
the moment of our participation in the first ritual of the day had
seemed vaguely familiar. Now, on this day, Lawand’s insanity had
re-emerged in the chilling intensity of Amani’s eyes.
    I told myself that Amani was going the way of
her cousin Lawand!
    While still a teenager, Lawand, who was a
first cousin of Kareem on his father’s side of the family, had
attended school in Geneva, Switzerland. Her parents’ decision to
send her abroad for schooling proved a grievous mistake. While in
Geneva, Lawand disgraced her family by becoming involved with
several young men. In addition to her sexual involvements, Lawand
became addicted to cocaine. While moving secretly out of her room
one evening, Lawand was captured by the headmistress, who called
her father in Saudi Arabia, demanding that he come and collect his
wayward child.
    When the family found out about their
daughter’s activities, Lawand’s father and two brothers flew to
Geneva and took the girl to a Swiss drug rehabilitation center. Six
months later, when her treatment was completed, she was brought
back to Saudi Arabia. The family was exhausted with shame and fury,
and as punishment they decided to confine Lawand to a small
apartment in their home until they were satisfied that she had
realized her reckless offense to Muslim life.
    When I heard the verdict, I could think of
little but Sameera, the best friend of my sister Tahani. Sameera
had been a brilliant and beautiful young woman when she was
deprived of her freedom so long ago and forced into the dark prison
of the woman’s room. While Lawand would one day secure her freedom,
it seemed that only death would free Sameera from her
incarceration.
    Within my limited sphere of expectations, I
found myself thinking that Lawand was fortunate her father was not
the unfeeling sort who could confine his daughter to life
imprisonment, or to death by stoning, and I experienced sad relief
instead of passionate anger.
    How fortunate is the human being who has no
memories, for memories often remold the victim of oppression into
the image of their oppressor! With terrifying seriousness, I
listened as the men of my family mouthed the law of