Princess Sultana's Daughters

caught my attention, however, was the
indisputable and concentrated scorn that blazed in his eyes when
his gaze fell upon the females in Kareem’s family.
    Kareem called out the man’s name in a loud
voice, and I remembered hearing of this person from my husband.
Thinking back, I recalled some of what Kareem had told me about
this particular acquaintance. During the years of our married life,
each time we had visited our villa in Cairo, Kareem’s memories of
his Egyptian schoolmate had been stirred. Each time, he planned to
look up his old friend. And on each occasion the fullness of our
family life had prevented his doing so.
    Now, after a quick view of the man, I was
glad Kareem’s plans had never materialized, for I felt myself
instantly in conflict with this malevolent character who, to my
eye, had been conspicuous in his dislike for women.
    I wondered what had produced such changes in
the man’s life, for I distinctly recalled Kareem having told me
Yousif had such attractive manners that women found it hard to
resist him and he never slept alone.
    Kareem and Yousif had known each other during
their student days, when they were both living in a land not their
own. While in London, Yousif was a carefree, happy individual who
was interested in little more than merrymaking with Western women
in gambling casinos. Kareem said he was brilliant, with little need
to study his lessons, and that was a good thing, for Yousif
introduced Kareem to a different girlfriend each week. In spite of
Yousif’s insatiable lust for female company, Kareem had predicted a
great future for his friend in the legal and political system of
Egypt, for Yousif had a quick mind and a pleasing manner.
    Yousif graduated from law school one year
ahead of Kareem, and they had not seen each other since that
time.
    As Yousif and Kareem began to share their
news, my daughters and I stayed in the background, which is our way
when the man is not of our family, but we could overhear all that
Kareem and Yousif were saying.
    Apparently Yousif had changed radically from
his years as a student, for after a short conversation, it was
evident that he and my husband no longer enjoyed much in
common.
    Yousif was strangely reticent regarding his
career, and when Kareem pressed him on his profession, he would say
little more than that he had changed from the youth of Kareem’s
memory and had become more attached to the traditional ways of
Islam.
    Yousif proudly told Kareem that since they
last met he had married and divorced one woman, who had given him
two sons, and had married a second woman, fathering five sons in
that union. The man delighted in boasting about the joys of having
seven sons. Yousif also mentioned that he had full custody of the
first two children, and that the boys had been forcibly taken from
the influence of his first wife, a modern woman who insisted upon
working outside of the home. She, Yousif said, with ill-concealed
disgust, was a teacher with new ideas about women and their station
in life.
    Yousif spat on the ground when he mentioned
his first wife’s name, and said, “Praise to God, Egypt is returning
to the teachings of the Koran. Egyptians will soon have the law of
Mohammed ruling their lives, rather than the unsettling system of
secular law that encourages our women to come out of purdah.”
    At this bit of information, I began to come
to life and was about to intrude on their conversation and tell the
man some of my thoughts, when I was struck dumb by further
revelations from Kareem’s friend.
    Yousif proudly told Kareem that his greatest
blessing from God was that neither of his marriages had been cursed
with the birth of daughters, and that truly, women were the source
of all sin. If a man had to waste his energies in guarding women,
Yousif said, he had little time for performing other, more
important duties in life.
    Without waiting for Kareem’s response to
these shocking comments, Yousif launched into the story of a man he
had met while in Makkah. He said that the man was an Indian Muslim
and that this Muslim was planning to remain in Saudi Arabia because
there was a warrant out for his arrest in India. The authorities in
India had discovered two days after his departure for Saudi Arabia
that he and his wife had murdered their baby daughter by pouring
scalding water down the child’s throat.
    Yousif asked for Kareem’s opinion on the
matter, but before my husband could speak, he resumed his loud,
rude speech and