Princess Sultana's Daughters

now heard it.”
    Walking up the steep slope of Mount Arafat, I
cried, “Here I am, O God! Here I am!” This is the day when God
erases all of our sins and confers his forgiveness.
    For many long hours my family and I, with the
other pilgrims, stood in the heat of the desert. We prayed and read
from the Koran. My daughters, like many other pilgrims, held
umbrellas over their heads to seek the shade, but I felt the need
to suffer the effects of a baking sun, as a testimony of my faith.
Many men and women were fainting all around me, and they were
transported on stretchers to the sunstroke vans, manned by hospital
attendants.
    As the sun was setting went to the area
between Mount Arafat and Mina. Abdullah and Kareem gathered small
stones for the following morning’s rituals, and without family
communication—for each of us showed signs of physical weariness—we
rested fitfully that last night and prepared ourselves for the
final day of Haj.
    The last morning we chanted, “In the name of
God Almighty I do this, and in hatred of the devil and his
pretense! God is Great!” Everyone then began casting seven sets of
the small stones gathered by Kareem and Abdullah. There are stone
pillars there symbolizing the devil.
    Cleansed of our sins we then traveled to the
plain of Mina. There we found sheep, goats, and camels being
butchered to commemorate Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his
beloved son to God. Butchers were walking among the crowds of
people, giving their prices to butcher an animal. Once paid, those
butchers would hold the animal, facing its head toward the Kaaba at
the Holy Mosque. Then they would loudly pray, “God is Great!”
Instantly they would slit the animal’s throat so that all the blood
would drain out.
    Hearing the cries of the poor beasts and
watching the blood run freely, poor Amani screamed as one insane
and dropped to the ground in a faint. Kareem and Abdullah carried
her to one of the small trailers that are set about for the faint
of heart and the weak.
    They soon returned, saying that Amani was
resting comfortably but was still crying, paralyzed with grief at
what she deemed to be the senseless slaughter of many beasts.
    Kareem gave me an I-told-you-so look. I felt
some small degree of happiness that a recognizable part of Amani’s
personality had survived intact and hoped that Kareem was right in
his assessment that once we departed Makkah our daughter would be
her old self.
    As we watched the violent activity, I
reminded myself that it was an important ritual, that the animals
are sacrificed to remind the pilgrims of the lessons they have
learned at Haj: sacrifice, obedience to God, mercy to all men, and
faith.
    The four days of celebration now began in
earnest. I knew that Muslims all over the world were joining us,
their hearts sad because they were not in Makkah, too. We cut small
locks of our hair to signify the end of our pilgrimage. We rushed
to change our plain clothes for more colorful attire. Our men
slipped on white cotton thobes.
    The feasting began in the afternoon. Amani
was still pale but had recovered sufficiently to join in the
festivities, though she refused to partake of any meat.
    Our family gathered at our tent, and we
exchanged small gifts and congratulated each other. We said our
prayers before sitting to eat our meal of lamb with rice.
    What remained of our feast was given to the
poor. We soon left to travel a short distance to our palace in
Jeddah where we would continue to celebrate. From this time own our
children were now entitled to place the honored title of Hajji
before their first names, for they had fulfilled the fifth pillar
of Islam. I felt a smile cross my face, knowing that we had pleased
God by doing Haj.
    Now, I prayed for God to please me by
releasing my daughter Amani from the fundamentalist leanings that
seemed to grip her soul. I knew that mental instability could lend
sanctity to the most extreme doctrine. I did not want my daughter
sacrificed to the militant ideals, so common to many religions,
which I had struggled diligently against from the moment of
understanding.
    It was not to be. Whether I had pleased God
or not, his decision concerning my daughter failed to please
me.
    The trip to Makkah would later prove to be
both a blessing and a misfortune for my family. While Kareem and I
grew closer than we had been since the first few years of our
marriage, and Maha and Abdullah sought to live the lives of
responsible citizens, Amani