Gift!
My friend Ahmed couldn’t believe what was being said or offered!! He even thought his ears were plugged with wax making it difficult for him to hear. I am sure I didn’t hear you well, he whispered under his breath. But the old man repeated his sentence, I am offering you my daughter as a gift for your help and good work.
Ahmed told the old man, my dear sir you know that I am married and.. the old man interrupted him by saying, Islam allows you to marry up to four women, I am not asking you to commit a crime, but I am rewarding you by giving you my daughter.. you will accept!
Ahmed is an employee in an investment bank, this old man has been his client for over a year now. The old man has always been fond of Ahmed for guiding and helping him out. His thank you gift to Ahmed is his daughter.
This act is not very common here in Saudi Arabia but it still happens among some Bedouins and tribes. A woman is perceived as an object or a trophy, she is handed over from one man to another as a gift. Many would question if this actually still happens at this time and age, and I will tell you yes it still does and it’s considered an act of kindness and generosity.
The story I just mentioned is based on real incidents that happened not too long ago to a friend of mine, he was able to get out of it, thank god.
The problem many women face here is the lack of awareness of their own rights which makes them so vulnerable to such maltreatment and suppression, but let’s face it, even if a woman knows her full rights without the support of her family, she has no where to go.
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Great issue to discuss Rasha… but it goes a tad deeper than this as well, when women accept it. Sometimes not out of hopelessness, but as a tradition. “This is how things are here,” they would say. But I think it’s safe to assume that most women secretly despise this way of life for reasons to obvious, no sane person would approve of being perceived and treated like objects and toys for men to play with.
I think if the issue was to be fixed from within society, education would be the right step to take, but that is of course much easier said than done. What do we teach them? And how can we teach them if society is overwhelmingly in support of this practice? Anyone who tries would be rebelled against, eliminated, ruled out of the game. So what do we to help these young women?
The awareness is more on society than it is on women alone.. It sickens me how Jahliya is not a far fetched idea.. What’s next? burying women alive?
We raise the awareness in some cases equally, and other cases, to the weaker tip of the scale.. Imbalance causes confusion and ignorance.. And sadly, coming from a religion that emphasized women’s worth, that imbalance is on how we perceive the females in our societies.. Let alone, the cultural norms that are based on tribal and out-of-context islamic teachings that are manipulated to feed an animalistic human lust.. UGH!!!!
I’ll second Esra’a in this.. We need to discuss this on many layers and many fronts.. Maybe start a mini-blog-series?
just a thought..
Yours,
Lou..
Hey Esra’s and Louai,
I am happy that there are people like you. I came across of a website of an artist who does art about Saudi women oppression. She might have gone too far but she is worth looking at: hend-al-mansour.org
Salam
Walladeh, I had a look at the site.. interesting but it gave me the opposite impression.. in many of her screen prints she actually emphasized women empowerment..
hmm.. did you get your name from one of her screen prints? it means giving birth.. It’s not my taste, but I thought it was interesting coming from a Saudi female surgeon who became an artist!
Girls traded and sold to settle debt