Osama bin Laden's wives told they are free to leave Pakistan

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Two wives of Osama bin Laden, held in Pakistan after the raid in May that killed their husband, are set to return to their homeland of Saudi Arabia, Pakistani officials have said.

A third wife will not travel back to her native land, Yemen, after authorities refused to accept her but may instead be offered a new home in Qatar, the Gulf emirate, a source in the Pakistani interior ministry told the Guardian.

All three women were detained by Pakistani military personnel after the American special forces raid on a house in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad during which Bin Laden was killed. Around a dozen children were also taken into Pakistani custody.

According to the officials and Saudi press reports, the two Saudi-born wives, Khairiah Sabar and Siham Sabar, recently had their Saudi citizenship restored, a move which would allow their return, possibly as early as next week.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/08/osama-bin-laden-wives-free

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Here are Osama Bin Laden's wives. Like polygamist "families"

Makes me sick

[Kolesar]

2. Like David Koresh...eom

[happyslug]

4. Actually bin Laden was a radical "Women Rights" person as to his wives

Bin Laden's father had many wives, so many bid Laden became discussed with his father for Mohammad permitted a man only FOUR wives at any one time, not the number of wives bin Laden's father or many of the male members of the house of Saud have.

Bin Laden also required them to go through various military training, including an infantry course, where they carried AKs. All but his last wife were Collage educated (The last and youngest wife appears to have been a political marriage in regards to the war in Yemen).

Before he ordered the 9/11 attacks he told all of his four wives he had at that time, if they did NOT want to live in a cave, he would understand and divorce them and leave them go home. At least one (and if I remember right two) of his wives took him up on that offer.

Here is a biography of three of the above four women:

Khairiah Saber, also known as Umm Hamza (mother of Hamza). A child psychologist with a PhD in Islamic studies, she was reportedly Osama's favorite wife, and the most mature, being seven years his senior. She had only one child, a son. Though she had a frail constitution and was not beautiful, she was from "a wealthy and distinguished family," exuded a "regal quality," and "was deeply committed to the jihadi cause". News reports suggest that she was living in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan at the time of bin Laden's death.

Siham Sabar, also known as Umm Khaled (mother of Khaled). A teacher of Arabic grammar, she kept her university job and commuted to Saudi Arabia during their time in Sudan. News reports suggest that she was living in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan at the time of bin Laden's death.

Amal Ahmed al-Sadah. Osama's youngest wife, born 1981. Born Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah in Yemen, she married Osama in 2000. However, according to a Yemeni passport, she was born in 1987. The marriage between Amal al-Sadah and bin Laden was apparently part of a "political arrangement" between Osama and "an important Yemeni tribe, meant to boost al-Qaeda recruitment in Yemen". Amal al-Sadah was identified as living in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan at the time of bin Laden's death, along with Siham Sabar and Khairiah Sabar, the other two wives of bin Laden. She was injured in the calf in the raid. Osama commissioned Rashad Mohammed Saeed Ismael to choose the bride and arrange the marriage.

His two two wives asked for and obtain a divorce in 2001, just before 9/11:

Najwa Ghanhem (born 1960) a Syrian, also known as Umm Abdullah (mother of Abdullah). Najwa was "promised" in marriage to Osama. Bin Laden married her in 1974 in Latakia in northwestern Syria. After the birth of their first son, Abdullah, they moved from his mother's house to a building in the Al-Aziziyah district of Jeddah. She is the mother of Saad bin Laden, as well as at least 10 more children. She co-authored Growing Up bin Laden with her son Omar. She was the youngest and least educated of Osama's wives. Her children did not like life in Khartoum and even less life in Afghanistan. She left bin Laden around 2001, about the same time as his marriage to Amal al-Sadah. She returned to Syria and was last reported living in Latakia. Her father is the brother of Osama's mother, Hamida al-Attas (born Alia Ghanem).

Khadijah Sharif (born 1948) also known as Umm Ali (mother of Ali). She was a university lecturer who studied and worked in Saudi Arabia. Umm Ali bin Laden spent holidays in Khartoum, Sudan, where Osama later settled during his exile in the years 1991 to 1996. According to Wisal al Turabi, the wife of Sudan's ruler Hassan Turabi, Umm Ali taught Islam to some families in Riyadh, an upscale neighborhood in Khartoum. According to Abu Jandal, bin Laden's former chief bodyguard, while living in Sudan, Umm Ali asked Osama for a divorce because she said that she "could not continue to live in an austere way and in hardship".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najwa_Ghanem

[riderinthestorm]

5. 5 wives? One of whom was a 13 yr old child bride arranged to seal a terrorist political deal?

Do you really want to hold up OBL as a women's rights champion??

[happyslug]

6. All but the 13 year old (which is the most political of the marriages) were all Collage educated

These were NOT barefoot and pregnant women, but well educated elite women.

As to his youngest bride, except for the Yemen passport, she was 21 at the time of her marriage. Yemen is NOT the most reliable when it comes to Government issued documents, so it is even money as to her age. Furthermore, according to the sources I have read, bin Laden had no children by her, which again shows the political nature of the marriage (i.e. sex and children were of secondary concern).

More on his wives, including a statement that he was still legally married to his first wife, who wrote a book with her son about her time on the run with bin Laden.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2070880,00.html

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. Concubines who went to school. Sounds really feminist to me!!! Woohoo! nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

7. ROFLMAO! You've got to be kidding me, right? They go to college to be a concubine? NICE!!

That's like going to college to become a street whore.

[happyslug]

9. All were LEGAL wives, each had their own home in Afghanistan

In bin Laden's last home, each wife had their own floor (Remember the house was a mansion). Each get a share of his money, each can look to his family for support (Characteristic of Arab cultures).

In Afghanistan each woman had their own home, a requirement of Islam when it comes to multiple wives. It is NOT a Western Tradition, but it is a tradition that not even Mohammand tried to change. We may disagree with it, but that is the rule among the elite of Saudi Arabia, which bin Laden's family was a member of.

[riderinthestorm]

11. Heh! So you think that because they had their OWN FLOOR!

Its okay being a permanently secondary status person?

Or their own house? Wow!! That makes up for all sorts of other truly damaging concepts that enshrine secondary status. OBL never empowered women within his organization or within his view of Wahhabist religiosity. I'm really curious, why do you continue propping up some of these concepts (like OBL is really a feminist! or lashings aren't so bad - they aren't SUPPOSED to kill!) I have no patience with cultural relativists who try to justify some of this heinous crap and I'm not understanding why you are trying to somehow make any of this okay?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

14. He's either saying those things to get a rise out of someone, or he

legitimately believes it, in which case he's like any polygamist. And polygamists are horses' asses.

[happyslug]

17. No, I try to understand people and their culture

We are all product of out culture, much of what we believe to be the right way to do things is the product of our culture NOT anything to do with logic, right or wrong, religion, law, or any other factor. Arab culture has long had a tradition that men with enough money to support more then one wife, each wife in their own home, can do so. This tradition pre-dates Christianity let alone Islam. The rules of such marriages are also very old, pre-dates the written record. For example, First Wives always had priority over later wives, if any inheritance was involved, it went to the Children of the First Wife NOT any other wife (Through a Father was expected to make sure ALL of his children were taken care of, trained in a profession, given land or animals or other means to prosper in their Society.

Other rights of First wives was the right to decide if a Second wife was permitted. The husband still had the right to marry a second wife, but the first wife's had to accept that marriage, if not it was invalid (This appears to have happen to bin Laden in Sudan when one of his marriages were annulled within 48 hours of the marriage). My favorite historical story of this is when Genghis Khan took his last and favorite wife. He just fell in love with her and instead of taking her as a concubine, married her. After the Marriage he realized he had made a HUGE mistake, he still wanted to keep his latest wife, the mistake was for NOT asking permission of his first wife first. In one of the slowest marches any Mongol army ever took under Genghis Khan, he brought his new wife home, but on the march kept sending presents to his First Wife. By the time he arrived home with his new wife, his First Wife had figured out what he had done, and after making sure Genghis agreed with her that only her sons would inherit his Empire, she accepted the new wife. The young wife was the only wife to go on the march with Genghis, but her children, while given land, money and even power by Genghis were always distant seconds to the sons of his first wife (Genghis's Empire was divided among his sons, and then their sons, the sons of his youngest wife were officers is those sons and grandson's armies, not leaders of those successor states).

These second, third etc wives were NOT Concubines, their and their children had rights. Those rights were inferior to the rights of the First Wife and her children but their had rights and their Father had to take care of them as legitimate children. One of the problems with Saudi Arabia today is that King Saud I who died in 1952, had several wives and children by those wives. All of the Kings of Arabia since 1952 has been his sons, but not all of them sons to the same wife (The present King Abdullah, mother was a different mother then the mother of the previous Kings of Saudi Arabia, the Kingship of Arabia is an elected position, but the vote is limited to the legitimate sons, grandsons, great grandsons etc of King Saud I). Many of the Marriages of King Saud I was political in nature, i.e. a daughter of a political ally. Sex was expected as were children, but the marriage was more a political alliance then anything to do with Sex or Children.

I am just trying to inform people of how the people of Arabia view multiple marriages. It is a long tradition, one rejected by the West since at least the time of Christ. Multiple marriages among Arabs are like breads and long robes, traditions the predate even Christ (as is the Western Norm of Men with clean Shaven faces and short hair, the norm in the West since the time of Scipio Africanus, the man who defeated Hannibal at the battle of Zama).

More on Scipio:
http://www.historynet.com/romes-craftiest-general-scipio-africanus.htm

Some more on Polygamy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy

Polygamy in Islam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy_in_Islam

You have to understand where people are coming from to fully understand them, and that is all I am trying to do with my posts.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

20. Some things are so heinous, they need to be eliminated without regard

Polygamy is one of those things.

[Prometheus Bound]

18. I don't understand your anger.

He's describing a situation, not taking a position, although he does say "We may not agree with it" at one point, so I suppose he is taking a position -- yours.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

21. I'd express the same anger if he were defending pedophiles. nt

[Prometheus Bound]

22. But he's not defending anything. He's explaining things.

[bitchkitty]

24. Or, he is simply

stating some facts about a culture, while you seem to be doing the message board equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting LALALALALA.

Pull those panties out of your crack, honey. You've got him founding a fucking polygamist movement, which he is clearly not.

[riderinthestorm]

26. He's the one who stated that OBL is akin to a radical women's rights advocate

within a medieval system of course. I take exception to that particular phrasing.

OBL wasn't some tribal hick from Waziristan where this was all he knew. He was from a global international family of enormous wealth, well-travelled and educated with a lot of exposure to other cultures that treat their women as equals. OBL CHOSE to embrace radical Wahhabism and CHOSE to perpetrate a system of female cultural and social inferiority. Any attempt to portray OBL as simply some guy who never knew different is just a fallacy. OBL was an enforcer of Wahhabism within his own circle, as well as a global preacher and amplifier for this particularly disgusting strain of Islam that diminishes women. I find it ridiculous and insulting to say, "OBL is a radical women's rights activist and feminist". Somebody is sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting LALALALA, trying to give OBL a cultural relativist spin when he is probably the poster child for evil dysfunctionality manifesting itself in a far right fringe of repressive religion.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

12. Legal wives. You mean concubines. A harem. A situation in which a male wants to F**K more than 1

female and he pretends it's religiously ordained, morally correct, and perfectly fine.

However, it's pure bullshit. It's nothing more than the treatment of women like donkeys and whores.

[Odin2005]

25. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Prometheus Bound]

10. They look happy in those photos.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

13. No doubt. Even abused children smile now and then. Why do they? I'll tell you why

Because even slaves smiled now and then, even people in concentration camps managed now and then to eek out a smile, because even kidnapped victims have been shown to smile now and then, because humans retain onto death the capacity to separate their lips and show their teeth.

That's why.

A smile or a grin does not indicate that the person has rights, that she is allowed to run her life as she pleases, or that she has self-determination.

[Prometheus Bound]

15. So you think they live lives of misery?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

19. Concubines? They live degraded lives. nt

[Prometheus Bound]

23. I've met only one such family.

They seemed to be happy. The three wives appeared to get along very well. I kind of felt sorry for the husband though. His wives were nurses in his medical practice, and they set his schedule and had him working like a slave, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I assume he regretted his life choices.

[Lasher]

16. Tom DeLay looked happy in his mugshot.

[krucial]

3. Yea,but not as many

Sure,But Osma don't have anywhere near as many wives as Warren Jeffs, and some other Mormons right here in America