Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [37]
There was only one bit of good news on that most unpleasant day. After abandoning me to my fate, Father’s stallion had raced back to the farm, where we later found him impatiently waiting for us at the stable gate.
The older I became, the more I learned regarding how the sons of Osama bin Laden were expected to live. As we all discovered, my father had a lot of unusual ideas about what he called the “evils of modern life.”
For example, my brothers and I all suffered from asthma and had endured many serious bouts during our youth, particularly while playing sports in the hot desert climate. On a number of occasions, I had been rushed to the hospital and connected to oxygen. Concerned that my brothers and I would suffer recurring asthma attacks, the doctors advised our father to keep a supply of Ventolin on hand and to have his children use an inhaler, but my father was adamant that we should not take modern prescription drugs, no matter how serious our affliction.
With the exception of modern transportation, our father decreed that we must live just as the Prophet had lived whenever possible. Since modern medicines were unknown in those days, we were not to take them. In fact, unless one of us was near death, my father refused all modern medical treatment.
His recommended treatment for asthma was for us to break off a piece of honeycomb and breathe through the comb. This did little good, but still our father would not relent, first making his claim about the life of the Prophet, then warning us that Ventolin would destroy our lungs.
Often I felt as though I was struggling to breathe through a straw, but unless death came knocking, my suffering was ignored. When Abdullah grew older, he heard about Ventolin and sneaked out and purchased a supply, and he gave me permission to use his inhaler.
I did so at the onset of the next attack. After two puffs, my life was transformed. Mother eventually discovered that we were disobeying our father’s orders by using inhalers, but thankfully she never reported our defiance to our father. Mother only cared that we were no longer suffering.
Until we were teenagers living in Afghanistan, none of us had ever met anyone who shared our father’s severe views. From the time we were old enough to talk, my father made it clear that we were expected to adhere to specific rules as to how a Muslim boy should live.
Like children everywhere, we tried to circumvent those rules at every opportunity. For example, Father forbade us to drink fizzy drinks that came from America. How we loved the forbidden! We obeyed his decree regarding American products so long as he was in sight, but heartily consumed Pepsi-Cola and other soft drinks whenever we got the chance.
There were other unexpected rules that had nothing to do with his aversion to western products. From the time we were toddlers, he demanded that we be given very little water. As we grew older, he reinforced the importance of drinking water only when absolutely necessary. He explained that his children should be “tough” and “patient,” so we must set our minds to resist nourishment of any kind for as long as possible.
Identical rules were set in place for his daughters, but he left our mother in charge of instilling discipline in them. My sisters were more fortunate because our mother found it impossible to resist the cries and pleas of her little girls for water or food.
Even when we were very young, our father would transport his sons into the dry desert outside the Jeddah farm, adamant that we accompany him on long walks, even though we were all prone to asthma attacks. His harshest ruling was that we could not drink any water until we returned from our hike. We were told that we should not even “think” about water. Of course, anyone knows that walking in the desert dangerously depletes the body of liquids. In fact, the government tells visitors to the deserts in Saudi Arabia to consume as much water as they can.
The sons of Osama