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Alishba

Mahbubat Kanyinsola Salahudeen

    I felt wrenched for my best friend, Haya. She was crying in her mother’s arms, it was her seventeenth birthday and we should have been celebrating but her mother had just relayed her father’s news to her.
    My best friend was getting married, she had never met the groom, but she knew he was chosen solely because of his financial influence and she was going to be his fourth wife.
    Haya started veiling when she saw her first blood four years ago, the veil marked her womanhood. Her marriage announcement made it suddenly apparent to me that happiness is realized in the face of unhappiness, we were both happy until Haya’s unhappiness stared in my face.
    Haya was lovely, much more beautiful than I or any of her sisters, she was tall and slim with almond shaped eyes. Her long black hair was the envy of her sisters, I knew I would never possess such qualities so envy for me was a waste of time. Unfortunately, not only was Haya beautiful, she was also bright, in our land, a woman’s brilliance assures her propounded misery for her sole duty is to serve her husband. While it is true that most marriages in our religion are in the hands of older females of the family, our fathers were the sole decision maker on everything. Just three years prior, I was thirteen. Haya had told me that her father had decided that his most beautiful daughter would marry a man of wealth and prominence, she also revealed that she was yet to get married because her father saw her then suitors as not rich or prominent enough.
    And now, Haya was going to get married, I knew I had no place there, her back was turned to me, I slid outside the room and wept as she cursed her father, our culture and our religion. I lost many of her words but I had no words of comfort for Haya.
    Three of my elder sisters had suffered similar fate, they were married to men our father liked. Since I started veiling, they told me stories of their time with their husbands, Anzilah’s fate was much worse, her husband was sadistic, she had been subjected to horrific sexual brutality that she felt her only escape was death. I dreaded the day I would get married, I shuddered for I felt my pain of my marriage will overweight my happiness.
    I can barely recall the weddings of my sisters but I can bring back to my mind every detail of the event that occurred at Haya’s wedding day.
    It was 18th, June 1989, because of the weight loss, her dark eyes dominated her face, I could see through those enormous eyes, fear. Few women attended the wedding details, I took her palm in mine, she looked at me with those fearful pupils, I felt there was something she needed to tell, something she was not telling me.
    When a Saudi bride is happy, the preparation is filled with laughter, for Haya’s wedding, it was somber, Haya’s groom was an old man but then, many old men married young girls, I am sure they were used to the terror of their brides, after all a virgin bride should be: frightened to the core. I knew the groom was older than her father, he looked like an old circus monkey to me, I felt disgusted at the thought of having his body on my friend’s body. I watched him accept their congratulations of his marriage to such a beautiful woman, he then began to lead Haya away, her eyes locked onto mine, I do not know what it was but it was much greater than fear, I felt certain no one would help her. I found no consolation to the knowledge that Haya would never be happy again, as I walked home, I felt hate for the customs of my land, the absolute lack of freedom for our sex, laws made by men just to subdue women, all in the name of Islam.
    In my country, I have seen news papers print articles that honour a man for executing his wife or daughter for indecent behavior, congratulations are given by the Mutawas for the men’s notable act of upholding the teachings of the prophet.
    The next morning, three of these Mutawas arrived at our gate, I peered through the window as they spoke in low tones with my father. “Alishba!!”, my father was pallid when he came into the house, I went to the living room, the Mutawas had left. I sat disbelieving when he told me Haya was going to be executed by stoning the following Friday at ten o’clock, my heart raved with fear when my father informed me that the Mutawas would return to question me if I had accompanied Haya on her shameful undertakings. My face turned pale when my father said the unexpected, “Alishba, if by chance I discover that you dishonour our name, no one not even God will stop me from lowering you in to the earth. Accept your fate as one that listens for you have no choice.”
    My life was spared by the fact that my hymen was intact, no one, not even my father believed my fabrication that the indecent magazine spotted beneath my bed was given to me by a friend whom I met during a trip to Cairo and that I had no idea they were obscene since I had never opened them.
    At 10 o’clock on Friday, I sat on my bed, I thought of Haya. Khalid, my brother had been at her execution, I lost most of his words but I knew Haya’s father had condemned his daughter to death, her husband had raised his hands slowly, “Let her be stoned!” The crowd became hysterical and people began to dance, as if caught up by madness, he screamed at the top of his lungs, “Let her be stoned,” he had looked radiant, men slapped him affectionately, children grab hold of his shirt and arms had lifted him off the ground. Sighs, moans and shouts filled the air. “The whore must die... Death..... Death to the woman.”
    “People said that after the marriage had ended, the man went in with Haya, it was not long when he came out if the room grabbing Haya by the hair, she had nothing on her, he told everyone that he had wedded a woman of no honour, he demanded that the money paid as Mahr be refunded right there, people said there was no blood on the sheets, she was not a virgin.” I was surprised at my brother’s disgust at the plight of my friend. As the law required, the body of the martyred woman would remain exposed, as an example to all.
    I closed my eyes, I felt her body lowered into the ground, I would no longer see those almond shaped eyes, Haya would not laugh again. Very early the next morning, I emerged from my house, I slipped out of the house like a thief. I walked through the paths that led to the beach, the sun was not in sight, I sat on a rock just near the bay, my chest tightened, I would never see Haya again. Only then did I pray. Only then did I cry.
    Primitive customs had always determined women’s roles in my land, freedom to drive, to toss aside the veil or travel without the permission of a male were lost dreams during my early years.
    It was dusk, the big yellow circle was sinking, for Muslims, it was time for the fourth prayer of the day. I stood on my bedroom balcony and watched as women clad in abaya drove down the streets of Riyadh, I smiled as women without the cloak cycled down to the masjid. I saw my husband and two daughters leave our home and walk hand in hand to the mosque, I saw men and women greeting one another in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood.
    Memories of my childhood raced back to me, I was a girl, shut out from the love of a father, reserved for his son Khalid. Forty-six years of my life had passed and so much had changed. Women and men were finally waking up and the Saudi world was falling to its place, I knew that all we had to do was to walk those steps, all we needed to do was to cross that bridge. And I know, happiness will follow.

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