Rajaa Alsanea - Girls of Riyadh

2. The Moderate Type

A.A strictly religious man who differs from the first group in the way he treats women: tenderly and without interference. This type can marry a relatively liberal woman as long as he is confident of her love and certain of her morals.

B.The seculars. This man believes that Islam is built on five and no more than five basic and compulsory beliefs. He only attends the assigned five prayers and fasts only during Ramadan. After he has gone on the Pilgrimage to Mecca, he feels he has done his part, as long as he has also adhered to the declaration of the faith and given alms to the poor. This kind of man does not marry a woman unless she is on the same level of liberation as he is. He wouldn’t marry someone who wears hijab, for example, and would insist that his wife be pretty, open-minded and stylish so that he could proudly show her off in front of his friends, who share his point of view.

3. The Wild or Escapee Type

A.Gradual escapee. Someone in this group may have grown up in a very strict religious atmosphere and “escaped” in a religious and moral sense. His escape is a gradual one, happening whenever he gets a chance to be away from the authority of his community. This type might pretend to belong to the first group to prevent any social embarrassment.

B.Liberal upbringing. This type has been brought up in an extremely liberal home to the point of atheism in his religious beliefs and the absence of any kind of bulwark against “bad behavior.” And as we all say in these parts: “He who grows up doing something, grows old doing it.” The problem you find in this type of man is pathological suspicion. Unfortunately, and due to his experiences with some cheap girls, whom we will be discussing later, he believes that every girl is guilty until proven innocent. This is why a man in the “wild” category always prefers to marry an inexperienced girl; she will always view things from his corrupted point of view. Sometimes a man of this type marries a girl who is a flirt but knows how to play the game. She knows perfectly well what her husband is really like and she knows how to manipulate and pretend so that her actions won’t end up being misinterpreted. This is exactly what happened to Sadeem, who didn’t realize who Waleed really was until it was too late and after he had made up his mind that she was “bad.”

Now we come to the matching categories for women.

1. The Extremely Religious (“Bowing to the Faith”) Type

A.The sheltered one. Brought up in a strict religious family, a woman of this type has never been exposed to any conflicting outside forces. If she’s very lucky, she will marry someone equally religious. As long as both are able to accept and be happy with what fate has brought them, they can live “happily ever after” in a peaceful and secure life. But if she ends up marrying a man more liberal than she is, she will be miserable because she will never understand how to please him, since she has no knowledge of his way of life.

B.Sheltered, but with fantasies. This woman also has grown up in a sheltered setting, except that fantasies of bursting out into something new, into some kind of liberation, have always pursued her. She is also pure, not because of ignorance of the world “out there,” but because of her own will, her self-discipline or the surveillance of her family.

2. The Moderate Type

A.Fashion victim. This woman changes her behavior according to the current fashion. If the trend during a certain time is to act all spiritual, attend religious gatherings and wear the hijab outside the kingdom, she will do it and “go with the flow.” But if the trend is to dump your hijab once you get outside the country, and when you are inside to spend a lot of time in the malls wearing a tight-fitted abaya that shows off the features of a woman’s body, then she will go with that flow, too. These trends are usually under the control of men’s preferences during their search for suitable wives, or mothers who are hunting for future daughters-in-law.

B.Not religious, but not liberated, either. This woman is less strict than the extremely religious woman but more observant than the more liberal one. A woman from this group tends to resist sinning because of her morals and principles rather than her actual religious belief. She often has a strong personality, so she might mistakenly be listed as a liberal because she doesn’t submit to all the rules of the more zealous groups.

3. The Wild Type (or “Escapee”)

A.Wild before marriage. This woman normally reforms after marriage. She might turn into a very committed woman (or at least one of moderate commitment). That depends on her husband. If she marries someone who isn’t right for her, she remains in the wild category even after her marriage.

B.Wild after marriage. This woman is usually a member of one of the sheltered groups, but she goes “bad” after marriage because she can’t acclimatize to the demands of a liberated husband, or because of a rocky marriage or an unfaithful husband.

These were some of the complicated sets of categories that Sadeem took down while Um Nuwayyir dictated. Even months after writing it all down, Sadeem was still trying to absorb everything. The soundness of the whole complicated scheme became clearer and clearer with the passing of every day that Sadeem lived in the school of life. After all, that was the school where Um Nuwayyir had gotten her information and formulated her theory.

Sadeem’s thoughts about Um Nuwayyir reminded her of the evening gatherings at home with her three friends. She could almost taste the Kuwaiti desserts—the syrupy sweetness of the zalabya and the smooth powdered darabeel —that Um Nuwayyir used to ply them with, together with hot tea. Her memories flew her home to Riyadh, all the way to the metallic gate with its gilt-edged bars, where she had so often stood after the evening prayer time waiting for Waleed to arrive. She saw in her mind’s eye the swing by the swimming pool where she had spent evenings with his arm around her; the formal living room where guests were received, and where she had seen him for the first time; the television in the family living room where together they had watched all of those films; and the room that witnessed the birth of their love as well as its death. Had her love for Waleed truly died?

She got up to turn on the cassette player. She picked up a tape from among the many that were scattered across the floor. She pushed it into the machine, crept back to her bed and rolled into a ball like a fetus in its mother’s womb. She listened woefully to Abdul Haleem’s* mournful voice:

Rid yourself of woe and tears

Instead of crying years and years

Oh you who’ve wept the traitor man

Weep on today, if you well can.

But watch that no one sees tears fall

For such will please the traitors all.

Sadeem cried and cried, and cried, alone in her London flat, wishing and hoping to rid herself of woes and tears, instead of crying years and years. Instead of crying spring and fall, bringing joy to traitors all.

12.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: April 30, 2004

Subject: A Life That…“Could Be Worse”

I asked Aisha “Prophet Mohammed’s wife,” What did the Prophet—peace be upon him—do in his home? She said, He was occupied in the vocation and service of his family… —The hadith collection of Al-Bukhari, verse 676