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...