Princess Sultana's Daughters

with an expression of incredulity, humored his wife by
following me from the room.
    As we entered the hallway leading to Amani’s
door, we could hear the sound of her voice, rising and falling with
the intensity of her words.
    Kareem left my side and burst into Amani’s
room. Our daughter turned, displaying a face lined with pain and
haggard with sorrow.
    Kareem spoke softly. “Amani, it is time for
you to take a small rest. Go to bed. Now. Your mother will wake you
in an hour for the evening meal.”
    Amani’s expression appeared stricken, and she
did not speak. But still bound to Kareem’s influence, she lay
across the bed, fully dressed, and closed her eyes.
    I could see my child’s lips as they continued
to move in silent prayer, uttering words that were not meant for my
ears.
    Kareem and I quietly left our daughter.
Drinking coffee in our sitting room, Kareem confessed that he had a
small degree of concern but was skeptical of my exaggerated fear
that Amani was sinking into a medieval passion, darkened with
thoughts of sin, suffering, and hell. He sat quietly for a short
while and then announced that my apprehension was directly linked
to Lawand’s unhinged denunciations of human wickedness. He told me
that Amani’s religious revival did not result from insanity, but
was essentially linked with the overpowering joy of Haj.
    “You will see,” he promised, “once we have
returned to the normal routine of life, Amani will lapse again into
the habit of accumulating wandering beasts, and her religious
fanaticism will soon be forgotten.” Kareem smiled and asked a small
favor. “Sultana, please, allow Amani some peace to turn from her
daily problems to a oneness with God. It is a duty of all
Muslims.”
    With a grimace, I nodded my head in
agreement. Somewhat relieved, I hoped that Kareem was right.
    Still, not leaving such an important matter
to chance, in my prayers that evening I indulged in long hours of
pleading with God that Amani would once again be the child she had
been prior to our attending Haj.
    I suffered nightmares throughout the night: I
dreamed that my daughter left our home to join an extremist
religious organization in Amman, Jordan, that doused gasoline on
the clothing of working Muslim women, setting afire and burning to
death those whom they deemed nonbelievers.
     

 
Haj
    “ Arab lands will now go the way of Iran.
Egypt will not be the first to fall, nevertheless it shall fall.
The women will be the first to suffer loss of human rights. We
women were offered our rights as human beings first by Nasser then
by Sadat. The courts have already struck down the humane law giving
women the right to divorce husbands who take second wives. Egyptian
women cringe to think of what is yet to come, often joking that
soon we shall share the unfortunate fate of our Saudi
sisters.”
    —Comments of an Egyptian feminist pilgrim as
spoken to Sara Al Sa’ud during the Haj of 1990.
    I believed that God must have heard my
stirring appeal, for the following morning Amani seemed her usual
self. It was as if sleep had erased the apotheosis of human
suffering I had witnessed on my daughter’s face the day before. She
giggled and joked with her sister, Maha, as they ate their
breakfast of fresh yogurt and melon and munched on pieces of kibbeh
left over from our evening meal.
    Our driver delivered us to the Valley of
Mina, which is approximately six miles north of Makkah. We would
spend the night in Mina, in an air-conditioned tent Kareem had
arranged. By sleeping in the Valley of Mina, our family would be
ready for an early morning. The children seemed quite excited at
the prospect, since we had never before slept in the valley.
    Along the way, we passed what seemed to be an
endless line of buses, all transporting pilgrims. Many thousands of
others were slowly walking the six-mile journey from Makkah to the
Valley of Mina.
    Thinking that Amani had returned to normal, I
once again found myself glad to be part of this wonderful gathering
of the faithful, and I happily looked forward to the last days of
Haj.
    *
    It was while we were in the Valley of Mina
that Kareem met with an old friend from youthful days spent in
England. The man, Yousif, was from Egypt. One moment Kareem was
standing by my side, and the next he was heartily embracing a man
none of us had ever seen.
    Looking at the man from a distance, I saw
that he had a long, slightly curving nose, projecting cheekbones,
and a curly beard. What most