"That was why I couldn't marry one of my cousins..."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Osama's Prodigal Son
His father tested chemical weapons on his dogs, tried to turn him into a suicide bomber and groomed him to lead Al Qaeda. The dark, twisted journey of Omar bin Laden

GUY LAWSON

Posted Jan 20, 2010 2:11 PM

Since returning to Saudi Arabia shortly before the attacks of 2001, Omar has struggled to make a living, an injustice that cuts him to the quick. He had assumed that he would slide effortlessly into the life of private jets and luxurious homes enjoyed by his wealthy Saudi relatives, but instead, he was forced to work for the family as a real estate agent, on commission. "Saudi families are afraid to be around me," he says. "That was why I couldn't marry one of my cousins or a Saudi girl from my class. I got refused seven times, from people at the same level as my family." He managed to amass several hundred thousand dollars by starting a scrap-metal business, but for a bin Laden accustomed to vast wealth, such a sum was a pittance. Haunted by his father's misdeeds and unable to make a name for himself, he plunged into a deep depression.

Then, on a horseback-riding tour near the Pyramids in 2006, he met Zaina. "I see her blue eyes and the black hair, and in my heart I wanted to marry her," he says. "She was in the same group of horse riders as me. It was a sign I could make my dream. The second day, we were walking down from the Pyramids, and I told her who I am. A lot of time people run away. She told me she knew who I was. She didn't go away from the trouble. Why she would want to be with me and marry into a mess situation if her heart is not clean and right?"

"Before Omar, I had a very quiet life," Zaina says. "I preferred to ride horses. I liked to be left alone. Then the awful things came out in the newspapers, and I was mortified. Everybody believed these horrific things about Omar and about me. They think he is just like his father."

"I am judged by my father all the time," Omar says. "It is not right. I am trying to fight all the world to think differently than they do about me. It is very, very, very hard work."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31820385/osamas_prodigal_son/3

[Edweird]

1. You can't pick your family.

[east texas lib]

2. Damn! One can only imagine what his existence must be like. (nt)

[Betsy Ross]

3. It's good to hear from him. K&R

[slampoet]

4. Cousin marriages are not as frowned upon in Islamic culture and the Koran doesn't forbid them.

Inheritance and titles travel in both matrilinial and patriarchal directions in some Islamic culture like the Bedouin. For such peoples the cousin marriage serves to concentrate wealth in a land that used to be very resource poor until oil came along.

This practice predates Islam. Prophet Mohammed married one of his cousins.

These days it is seen as permissible but not ideal, much like we see it.

I suspect the writer of the article included it for shock value, or Omar included it for the same purpose.

[roguevalley]

5. there are two or three men living in this country who are grand nephews of

adolf hitler. His cousin and mother, Hitler's sister in law, came to this country. They live around Denver.

[slampoet]

8. Okay. That doesn't have anything to do with my post but whatever.

[roguevalley]

12. it does if stigma and the effects of it on the basically innocent are

part of what your op is suggesting about this guy

[Libertas1776]

11. I guess your referring to this guy and his family

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

He's dead, by the way, and so is his mother.

[Alameda]

6. Thanks, interesting read....he sounds confused.

[ddeclue]

7. So what DOES Saudi banjo music sound like?

:eyes:

[hfojvt]

9. because marrying a cousin automatically leads to banjo music

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

"After her mother died in 1895, Charlotte decided to move back east for the first time in eight years. She contacted Houghton Gilman, her first cousin whom she had not seen in roughly fifteen years, who was a Wall Street attorney. They began spending a significant amount of time together almost immediately and became romantically involved."

Imagine that New England and New York and they are marrying first cousins. Shocking.

[ddeclue]

10. It's a lot easier to play with the extra finger...

:crazy: