Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [25]
Despite the fact that his stepfather was one of the finest men in Saudi Arabia, my father’s life did not evolve as he wished. Like most children of divorced parents, he felt a loss, for he was no longer as intimately involved with his father’s family. Although my father was never one to complain, it is believed that he keenly felt his lack of status, genuinely suffering from his father’s lack of personal love and care.
I know how my father felt. After all, I’m one of twenty children. I’ve often felt that same lack of attention from my father.
My father was known to everyone in and out of the family as the somber bin Laden boy who became increasingly occupied with religious teachings. As his son, I can attest to the fact that he never changed. He was unfailingly pious, always taking his religion more seriously than most. He never missed prayers. He devoted many hours to the study of the Koran, and to other religious sayings and teachings.
Although most men, regardless of their culture, are tempted by the sight of a different female from the ones in their life, my father was not. In fact, he was known to avert his eyes whenever a woman not of his family came into his view. To keep away from sexual temptation, he believed in early marriages. That’s the reason he made the decision to marry when he was only seventeen years old.
I’m pleased that my mother, Najwa Ghanem, who was my father’s first cousin, was his first wife. The position of the first wife is prestigious in my culture, and that prestige is tripled when the first wife is a first cousin and mother of a first son. Rarely does a Muslim man divorce a wife who is a cousin and the mother of the firstborn son. My parents were bound by blood, marriage, and parenthood.
Never did I hear my father raise his voice in anger to my mother. He always seemed very satisfied with her. In fact, when I was very small, there were times that he and my mother secluded themselves in their bedroom, and were not seen by the family for several days, so I know that my father enjoyed my mother’s company.
I understand his loyalty to my mother because she was a devoted wife and a wonderful mother. Her love for her children was indestructible. Although she was married to a wealthy man, and during the early years of their marriage had several housemaids assisting her, she personally took care of many of our needs, even hand-feeding us when we were sick.
In my eyes, my mother was a perfect mother.
My father was a different story. Although I cannot simply order my heart to stop loving my father, I do not agree with his behavior. There are times that I feel my heart swell with anger at his actions, which have harmed many people, people he did not know, as well as members of his own family. As the son of Osama bin Laden, I am truly sorry for all the terrible things that have happened, the innocent lives that have been destroyed, the grief that still lingers in many hearts.
My father was not always a man who hated. My father was not always a man hated by others. There was a time when many people spoke of my father with the highest accolades. History shows that he was once loved by many people. Despite our differences, I am not ashamed to admit that I loved my father with the usual passion of a young boy for his father. In fact, when I was a young boy, I worshipped my father, whom I believed to be not only the most brilliant but also the tallest man in the world. I would have to go to Afghanistan to meet a man taller than my father. In truth, I would have to go to Afghanistan to truly come to know