Not so long ago, hard-liner turned-reformed cleric Ayed Al-Garni wrote a piece entitled, "I wish I was American" on the plight of a married Saudi woman caught in an abusive marriage and far away from home.
The story revolves around a Saudi student who went to the United States to work on his MBA. He was accompanied by his wife and two children, a daughter aged 8 and a son who was 6 years old. The family initially settled in Richmond, Virginia not far from where the husband had to pursue his studies.
It was not long after that the husband's abusive nature toward his wife began to display itself, first with words and then physical assault that on more than one occasion caused bodily harm. The wife's cry for help during such times would invariably draw the attention of their neighbors, married Saudi couples themselves, who would try to intervene and play the peacemakers, demanding that the husband refrain from such violence toward his wife. They even contacted the wife's parents in Saudi Arabia to put some pressure on the husband to ease his aggression.
After completing one semester at his present institution and to avoid what he felt was the bothersome meddling of his Saudi neighbors into his private affairs, the husband then moved his family to an isolated house in a suburb in a city in Ohio where he had enrolled in another university for the remainder of the term. The change in location, however, did not provide any relief to his forlorn wife. The verbal abuses and the physical battering continued, only this time there weren't any sympathetic neighbors around.
After one such incident where he had left her in pain, she called her father and brothers in Saudi Arabia, only to be told that she had to sort this out with her husband, and that a wife had to put up with her fate, whatever it was. It was then that she mustered up enough courage to call the local police.
Within minutes, five patrol cars were around the house. The husband and wife were questioned separately, and the children were taken to another area with a police psychologist who gently drew more information from them. After the cops were satisfied that this was indeed a case of domestic violence and the husband was an unrestrained abuser, they decided to take him into custody. They also moved the wife and children to a nearby hotel where they would not be isolated.
As the wife could not drive and had no means to sustain herself, the next day, the police arranged for one of the patrol cars to take the children back and forth to school. They even arranged with the social welfare services to provide food, some spending money and other necessities for the family while the husband was being held for questioning.
The Saudi mission in Washington soon arranged for the bail of the student who was ordered by the police to stay away from his wife and children until the judge had made his ruling. The wife was advised to appoint an attorney to represent her interests. When she found out it would cost over $6,000, she simply broke down. She had no money, her family back home was cold to her requests for help, and she did not want to lose her children.
Two attorneys who happened to be in the building, upon hearing of her plight, volunteered to fight her case. The trial affirmed her allegations of abuse and the judge granted her request for a divorce from her husband and full custody of her children.
The social services soon moved the family to a small house in a pleasant neighborhood. Her children were exempt from paying any tuition. Soon after that, helping hands arranged a job for her that paid $3,000 per month, enough to sustain herself and her two children. Based on her request, her visa was then changed to immigrant status to enable her to obtain the US citizenship if she so pleased.
The point of this whole story is, as Al-Garni puts it,
what the Americans practice are the principles of Islam that somehow we chose to ignore here in our own country. He is somehow surprised that the codes and ethics in their laws are so eerily similar to the doctrines of Islam. He refers to the many cases in this country involving domestic violence that are so often ignored and the plight of abused women is swept under carpets or dusted away.
Some 14,000 years ago, Omar Bin Al-Khattab, the second of the four khalifas (caliphs) of Islam, upon hearing of domestic abuse by a husband, went with his sword to the culprit's house and rescued the hapless woman, threatening the husband to straighten up his ways. In a land that gave birth to Islam, where are such people today? And are such noble deeds only to be found in America?well I am not very Certain about that story of Omar Bin Al-Khattab Maeena... Even if it happened, it was nothing to do with Islam/Islamic rules of that time.
what a story to read.. well at least it ended like a fairy tale., other wise it could have gone straight to horrible honor.. ..........
Topic: I wish I was American' writes TARIQ AL-MAEENA