Princess Sultana's Daughters

surprised to see me
doing this and asked repeatedly, ‘Father, why are you digging in
the earth?’
    “I paid no attention to her questions. She
could not know that I was digging a pit to bury my own beautiful
daughter with my own hands.
    “While digging in the earth, dust and sand
fell upon my feet and clothes. My lovely daughter would clean the
dust from my feet and clothes while saying, ‘Father, you are
spoiling your clothes!’
    “I was like a deaf person and did not look at
her, and pretended that I heard nothing she said. I continued my
task and finally had dug a pit large enough to serve my
purpose.
    “I grabbed my daughter and threw her into the
pit, and began to fill the pit with great haste. The poor girl was
looking at me with frightened eyes. She began to cry frantically
and screamed, ‘My dear father, what is this? I have done no wrong!
Father, please, do not hide me in the ground!’”
    “I kept on doing my work like a deaf, dumb,
and blind person without paying any attention to her pleadings and
entreaties.
    “O Great Prophet of God! I was too heartless
to have pity on my own child! On the contrary, after burying her
alive, I heaved a huge sigh of relief and came back satisfied that
I had saved my honor and pride from humiliation.”
    When Prophet Mohammed heard this heartrending
story about an innocent girl, the Holy Prophet could not control
himself and tears fell upon his cheeks. He asked the Chief of the
Tribe of Asim, “This is too cruel! How can one, who does not pity
others, expect to be pitied by the Almighty God?”
    *
    Kareem looked into the faces of his children.
“Prophet Mohammed, upon hearing this story, became very gloomy, and
he related another story that was similar in its horror.”
    A man came to Mohammed and told him that he
had once been very ignorant. He said that he had no knowledge and
no guidance until the Prophet came and made God’s wishes known.
    This man said, “O Messenger of God! We
worshiped idols and killed our children with our own hands. I once
had a little and very charming daughter. When I would call her she
would run into my arms laughing with joy and pleasure. One day I
called this girl to me, and she readily came. I asked her to follow
me, and she did. I walked too rapidly, and this girl came running
with her small steps. There was a deep well at a short distance
from my home. When I reached this well, I stopped and the child
came to the well, trotting after me. I caught hold of that child by
the hand and threw her into the well. The poor child cried and
called out for me to save her. ‘Father’ was the last word on the
child’s lips.”
    When the man finished his story, the Prophet
wept for a long time, and the tears were so plentiful that they wet
his beard.
    *
    “Our ignorance about females was washed away
by the shedding of his tears, and today it is considered a vile and
cruel act for a man to bury alive, to throw down into wells, or to
harm his female children.”
    I hugged each of my daughters. In our hearts,
it was as if the Prophet himself were near us, and it seemed as if
the tragic tale of the two young girls had occurred in the present
and not centuries prior to our existence. Who could doubt that our
Prophet had done much to abolish unjust practices and cruel
customs? He had been born in an evil time, when pagan gods were
worshiped, when men took hundreds of wives, and the practice of
infanticide was common. Prophet Mohammed had great difficulty in
abolishing theseevil practices, and what he could not abolish, he
restricted.
    I told my family that in my opinion, the
traditions remaining from that era and not the Koran were what kept
us women in bondage. Few people know the facts that the Koran does
not call for veiling, nor the restrictions women endure in the
Muslim world. It is the traditions passed down that so hinder us
from moving forward.
    A lively discussion ensued as to why the
position of women was one of subjection to men, with Maha insulting
her brother Abdullah by pointing out that her scores in school
topped his in every subject.
    Just as Abdullah opened his mouth to respond,
I warned my children not to make the conversation personal.
    Then I brought up the obvious, that the
physical vulnerabilities of a woman can be traced to that most
important of human accomplishments, the absorption of her strength
in carrying, nursing, and rearing children. I have always known
that this one fact doomed females to a subordinate