Princess Sultana's Daughters

obedience,
saying that the peaceful structure of our conservative society
rested upon the perfect obedience of children to their parents and
wives to their husbands. Without that obedience, anarchy would rule
the day. The men of my family firmly stated that Lawand’s
punishment was fair.
    I visited the family on many occasions,
listening with profound sympathy to the grief of Lawand’s mother
and her sisters. Often, the women of the family spoke with Lawand
through the locked door. Initially, Lawand begged for forgiveness
and pleaded with her mother to set her free.
    Sara and I smuggled notes of encouragement to
our cousin, advising her to recall the wisdom of silence and to
read the books and play the games female members of the family
placed through the small opening that had been constructed for the
delivery of food and for emptying the pail containing bodily
wastes. But Lawand had little interest in occupying her time with
quiet pursuits.
    After several weeks of confinement, Lawand
returned to God and began to pray, declaring that she had seen the
error of her ways and swearing to her parents that she would never
again commit a single wrong.
    Taking great pity on her daughter, Lawand’s
mother beseeched her husband to set the child free, saying that she
felt certain Lawand would now return to the pious life.
    Lawand’s father suspected his daughter of
deceit, since he had told her that her confinement would end when
her mind once again embraced the proper thoughts of a believing
Muslim.
    Before long, Lawand prayed all her waking
moments, failing even to respond to our worried voices. I could
easily see that Lawand was hallucinating, for she spoke to God in
her prayers on an equal basis, shouting that she would represent
him on earth, teaching his followers a new moral code of which only
she, Lawand, had knowledge.
    After one particular visit, when Lawand’s
mother and I over-heard her madly rejoicing in the confines of her
room, I told Kareem that I was certain Lawand had lost her
mind.
    Kareem spoke with his father, who in turn
visited his brother’s home. As the eldest brother of Lawand’s
father, Kareem’s father had authority over the family. On my
father-in-law’s advice, Lawand’s father opened the locked door and
released his daughter from her prison. Lawand would now be allowed
to rejoin her family in a normal life.
    Lawand’s eleven-week confinement had ended,
but the family tragedy ripened rapidly. During the course of her
prison sentence, Lawand had disciplined herself to ascetic
austerity, and came out of her imprisonment seething with Islamic
fervor, claiming that a new day had dawned for Islam.
    On the day of her release, Lawand informed
her family that all Muslims must denounce luxury and vice, and
promptly pounced upon her two sisters for wearing kohl [black
powder] on their eyes, rouge on their cheeks, and fingernail polish
on their nails. After she made her sisters cower on the sofa,
Lawand ripped an expensive necklace from her mother’s neck and
rushed to throw the precious stones down the kitchen drain. The
women of the house could barely restrain her, and the family
disturbance resulted in various minor injuries. Lawand was given a
shot by one of the palace physicians and a prescription for drugs
to calm her mind.
    Violence hid its face for a while, but
nevertheless survived, and from time to time Lawand would lash out
with blunt passion, directing abuse at whoever was handy.
    After she ripped Sara’s gold earrings from my
sister’s ears, shouting that to see such gleaming finery hurt the
eyes of God, I thought to protect myself by purchasing a small
canister of Mace while I was on holiday in the United States. I hid
the item in my luggage, even from the eyes of Kareem, and began to
carry it in a small bag when I visited Lawand’s home.
    As is my disastrous misfortune, Lawand
selected an afternoon when I was paying a visit to demonstrate her
renewed religious fervor.
    Lawand, her mother, two sisters, and I were
having a pleasant chat while sipping tea, eating pastries, and
discussing my last trip to America when Lawand suddenly became
restless, her eyes flashing about, seeking some affront to God.
    In her temporarily disordered state, she
began to criticize her mother’s choice of clothing, which Lawand
stated was much too immodest for a believing Muslim. Fascinated, I
watched as Lawand carefully folded her table napkin and very
courteously covered her mother’s neck with the