The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is thought of by many as a forbidden place. To the billion plus men and women around the planet Earth who call themselves Muslims, Saudi Arabia is the Heartland of Islam. To Western feminists, Saudi Arabia is a backwards land and a veritable prison for the female sex. To the African, Filipino and Indian workers who come to Saudi Arabia for labor and end up mistreated by their Saudi Arabian employers, the Kingdom is a place to avoid. Still, what is life like for the women of Saudi Arabia?
Take a look at a young Saudi Arabian Muslim woman's life before passing judgement on her or her countrymen, please and thank you. Lots of people who have never been to Saudi Arabia are quick to judge. They forget that Saudi Arabian women are, first of all, women, and any man who tries to make a woman do what she does not want to do does so at his own peril...
The lady in question is a newlywed from a privileged background, one who is having a tough time adjusting to life as the wife of a mercurial younger man. Afaf Al-Harbi is twenty nine years old, and is newly married to Muhammad Al-Saud, the son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian family. The fact that Muhammad is five years younger than his wife was seen as odd by both of their families, but the pair nevertheless got married, one fine day in the City of Dammam, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
Many in the City of Dammam thought of Muhammad Al-Saud and Afaf Al-Harbi as an odd match. After all, Muhammad Al-Saud hadn't been the same since he went to study civil engineering at the University of California in the City of Los Angeles. While at UCLA, Muhammad Al-Saud explored a brand new world. Young, wealthy, and eager to experiment, Muhammad indulged in wine, clubbing, and lots of women of course. Along the way, he also discovered a penchant for certain 'odd' sexual practices, to say the least.
Afaf Al-Harbi is a classy young Saudi Arabian Muslim woman. The daughter of Imam Rafiq Al-Harbi, one of the most prominent clerics in all of Saudi Arabia, Afaf was raised to be a pious Muslim woman. Life wasn't easy for Afaf, whose mother Amina Abugabal was a Black Muslim woman from Sudan who married a Saudi Arabian Muslim preacher. Growing up to be a six-foot-tall, curvy, biracial woman in the Heartland of Islam taught Afaf to be brave in the face of adversity.
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a land where more than fifteen percent of the population has some African heritage, the bias against Black folks remains strong in the heart of the Arabs. Casual racism was pretty much a fact of life inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Afaf's father tried to marry her off for a while, but only Muhammad the reformed party guy who spent years living in the United States of America showed any interest in Afaf. Other suitors found her mixed blood 'tainted'...
At the time that Muhammad Al-Saud and his parents approached Afaf's father to ask for her hand in marriage, the young woman was dangerously close to thirty. Her father the Imam was relieved to marry her off. After the wedding, Afaf found her husband Muhammad's ways strange, but dismissed them as leftover Western nonsense from his days spent in the United Snakes of America. All was well, until the day Afaf and her husband had an argument over her lavish spending, and he came after her. Her reaction surprised them both...
"Hmm, you have some fire, I see, nice, I am definitely more into you now," Muhammad Saud said, rubbing his cheek with his hand and smiling at Afaf Al-Harbi, the obedient Saudi Muslim housewife who stunned him. Indeed, Afaf just slapped the shit out of him after Muhammad cornered her, berated her and then pointed his index finger at her face. Afaf, who stood there, breathing heavily, looked at her husband through angry brown eyes, and she pursed her lips before speaking.
"Husband, I am a good wife and swore to honor and obey you in all things but do not come at me this way," Afaf said, her tall, curvy body trembling, and Muhammad grinned nastily, growing more turned on by the minute. When he tried to grab Afaf again, she batted his hand away. And he came away with a nasty scratch for his efforts. Afaf looked at Muhammad's midsection, and saw the alarming bulge there. Perplexed, she looked up at her husband. The disturbing smile on his handsome countenance refused to go away...
"When I was studying in the United States, I met a kind of woman that the American infidels call a dominatrix, I see the same fire in your eyes, my wife," Muhammad said, and just like that, he sat down on a chair, and his demeanor changed. His blazing anger vanished, replaced by an air of relaxation that Afaf had not seen in her husband in quite some time. What was going on through his head?
"Husband, I am a good wife, I have obeyed you in all things and honored you, why do you provoke me so? Do I not please you?" Afaf asked, her tone filled with distress, and she looked at the mark on her husband's arm and her heart ached for him. If she hadn't feared for her safety she never would have done this to him. Muhammad looked at the scratch on his arm, and winced, and Afaf went to him, eager to apologize and mend his wound, cursing herself for reacting in this manner.
"That's the thing, Afaf, I don't want an obedient Muslim wife, I want one with fire," Muhammad said, and he rose and started toward her, and Afaf flinched, but stood her ground. Tenderly, Muhammad touched Afaf's lovely face, and the young Saudi woman smiled, and then kissed her husband's fingers. Excusing herself, she went to get some band aids and returned a few moments later. After tending to the scratch mark on her husband Muhammad's arm, Afaf sat near him, awaiting his pleasure, so to speak.
"Husband, whatever you need of me, I will do it," Afaf said, and her heart skipped a beat when the disturbing light came back in Muhammad's eyes. Muhammad gestured for Afaf to come closer, and after a brief hesitation, she did as she was told and sat beside her husband. Muhammad looked at his wife, and sighed. They'd been married for six months and Afaf had done everything he wanted, in and out of the bedroom. She cooked, cleaned, helped him with his workload by doing research, and also encouraged him in all things. Could she handle his true nature?
"Afaf, my wife, I have a secret," Muhammad began, and Afaf bit her lip, bracing herself for the worst. In Saudi Arabia, a land where women are eternally at the mercy of their husbands and male family members, a woman's life is filled with tension. A woman cannot have a close friendship with a male outside her family, otherwise she might be accused of sexual impropriety and then executed. The women always paid the price for men's folly...