Princess Sultana's Daughters

misfortune.
    A grief-stricken Tahani finally spoke.
“Sameera has died.”
    No one could speak, no one could move.
    Could it be true?
    I counted on my fingers, trying to calculate
the number of years that dear girl had spent locked in the woman’s
room, a padded cell in the home of her savage uncle.
    “How long?” Sara asked, seeing me struggle
with my memories.”
    “Almost fifteen years,” I told her.
    “I have committed a grave sin,” Tahani
confessed. “For many years I have asked God to take her uncle from
this earth!”
    We had heard that Sameera’s uncle was
wrinkled and frail, and that knowledge had given us hope that after
his death, Sameera would return to us.
    I sarcastically commented, “We should have
known that such a one could not be depended upon to die soon
enough.”
    Over the years, many had tried to win
Sameera’s release, saying that her sin did not merit eternal
earthly punishment, but her uncle felt that he alone knew the
wishes of God, and his harsh verdict had not been lifted.
    Sameera had been brilliant, beautiful, and
sweet in temperament. What nature had given her, cruel fortune took
away. As a result of her uncle’s unbelievable cruelty, Sameera
died, completely alone, locked away in the darkest of rooms, kept
from any human contact for fifteen long years.
    Tahani began to sob, her cries chopping
through her words. It took her many moments to reveal that Sameera
had been buried on this day. Her auntie confided that despite her
emaciation, Sameera was still beautiful when wrapped in the white
linen shroud in which she would appear before God.
    How could we bear the pain of her cruel
death?
    Choking back sobs, I tried to remember a
verse from Kahlil Gibran on the question of death. I first
whispered it, and as my memory of it returned, I slowly raised my
voice, until all could hear me. “ Only when you drink from the
river of silence, shall you indeed sing. And, when you have reached
the mountaintop, then you shall begin to climb. And, when the earth
shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance .”
    My sisters and I joined hands, remembering
that we were as a chain—strong as the strongest link, weak as the
weakest link.
    As never before, we belonged to a sisterhood
more powerful than that of our own blood. Never again would we sit
back and wonder at the cruelty of men and the obscene arbitrariness
of innocent female death brought about by men’s evil.
    I said, “Let the world know that the women of
Saudi Arabia are gaining strength in the knowledge that they are
right.”
    My sisters looked at me one by one, and for
the first time I knew that each of them understood why I do the
things that I do.
    At that moment I promised myself that somehow
the moral order of our world would be changed, and right would
triumph someday.
    The great human rights movement for women in
Saudi Arabia has just begun and it will not be defeated by men of
indoctrinated ignorance.
    The men of my land will grow to mourn my
existence, for I will never cease to challenge the evil precedents
they have allowed to prevail against the women of Saudi Arabia.
    ###
    Update from Jean Sasson
    The world as we know it was utterly changed
on September 11, 2001. Few people were left untouched by the
carnage brought against so many by so few. That eventful day even
provoked military action. The haunting images of the war against
terrorism were often tragic while others were uplifting, and none
more so than the endearing smiles on the faces of the previously burqa clad women and girls of Afghanistan. Although our
purposeful military mission was to seek justice and to stop suicide
bombers from future odious acts, I have always believed that the
emancipation of women is a freedom worth fighting for. A great
imbalance is created in the world when women are treated as
liabilities, as they are in many countries.
    As the Afghani women celebrated, I rejoiced
with them. As I listened to First Lady Laura Bush’s now famous
radio broadcast about these women, I waited in anticipation, hoping
that some golden words of hope would be cast to women in other
countries. Consider the fact that women in Saudi Arabia are
forbidden to drive or to participate in public life, or that
newborn females have their spines snapped in India, or the outrage
that men are acquitted for killing women who are raped in Pakistan,
or that young girls are routinely forced into prostitution in
Thailand.
    I recently spoke with Princess Sultana