In the Muslim world, a woman's life depends on the men in her life, first her father and later her husband and any son who might issue from her womb. This holds especially true in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the venerable Heartland of Islam.
I thank Allah for giving me a husband as kind-hearted and loving as my dear Mahmoud. Now, he may be strange, but he is good to me. I think his strangeness has to do with the time he spent living in Canada. Whatever it is, I've learned to not only live with it but to enjoy it.
My sisters live with men who are cold, domineering and stifle their spirits and ambitions. My husband and I are moving to Ontario after Ramadan, where I will begin my university studies. He's put me in intensive English language classes as preparation, and my instructors say I'm doing fairly well. I can't wait to begin my new life in Canada. My name is Maymuna Suleiman-Khalid and I have a story to share with you, ladies and gentlemen. The tale of how I found that rarest of blessings, true love, albeit with a very strange man.
I have known my husband Mahmoud my whole life, I think. From the moment I was born in the City of Najran we've been neighbors. His father Ali Khalid works in the oil and gas industry, and my father, Kader Suleiman works for the Saudi Arabian government as a high-ranking Cleric in the Ministry of Security. Our mothers are friends.
Mahmoud's mother Ayaan is of Ethiopian descent. His father is of course pure Saudi. I guess that makes Mahmoud half black and half Arab. To some people such differences matter but not me. He'll always be my little buddy. My mother Saleema is half Saudi and half Yemeni. Mahmoud and I used to play together when we were younger, since our families were so close.
In fact, we were born the same day. February 5, 1990. If that wasn't a sign of things to come, I don't know what is. I thought my dear Mahmoud and I would be together forever, and despaired when I found out his parents were moving away. Without my favorite brown-skinned, hairy little buddy, life would be too dull to contemplate. The day Mahmoud and his parents moved to Ontario, Canada, I think I cried a river's worth of tears. July 2, 2004. I remember like it was yesterday. My parents had to restrain me when Mahmoud and his parents got in their car and drove away.
I wept for my old friend, but he never came back. Eventually I moved on. When I turned eighteen, I enrolled at the prestigious King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the only coeducational, western-style institution in the entirety of Saudi Arabia. A place where women students could study beside men in the same classes, and we were also allowed to wear western-style clothing.
At that school I met girls and women from places like South Africa, Nigeria, Lebanon, Brazil, Ethiopia, and even western nations like England and France. The daughters of wealthy Europeans living and working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia attend this school in great numbers because all the others are burka central, to quote the favorite expression of an old classmate of mine.
Studying at the King Abdullah University gave me a taste of the west, and I wanted more. I pleaded with my parents to send me to study abroad, but my father refused. You see, my father works for the Saudi government and as a government official he's got an image to maintain.
Men are all about their image, I swear. It simply wouldn't be good form for him to appear liberal at a time when Saudi society is feeling pressure to change from outside forces and is thusly quite defensive and paranoid. Also, terrorism is a big problem in Saudi Arabia. Many radicals feel that by cooperating with American and European officials, the Saudi government is behaving in a manner that's anti-Islamic, and thus has no legitimacy. Those radicals are responsible for the 9/11 bombings. The average Saudi citizen doesn't hate the west. We're too busy living our lives.