Inside the Kingdom (edition 2005)

on Friday, December 19, 2008


Finished it last night (Dec.18) . Guess what I loved her conclusion, the last chapter and she has given me a sentence I want to remember cause I totally agree with it.

They will use our tolerance to infiltrate our society with there intolerance.
This is so true. The Netherlands is well known for its tolerance but it slowly is giving away because we have let so many people into our country who now want us to change and do not like all the freedoms we have!

Now about the book. I've read more books about women in Islamic culture and her life is very mild compared to the others. I think is interesting because she is one of the rich ones , her link to the Osama family , although you hardly hear anything about the main person of that horrible family, and of course the Princes.

Like Rosie i am also going to search for some more info on google now.

Which prince is now in power for instance. Is it the one she mentioned the more conservative one? Abdallah? I see the one reigning is called Abdulah

? 8.5

( )

NO OF PAGES: 206 SUB CAT I: Islam SUB CAT II: SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Osama bin Laden's former sister-in-law provides a penetrating, unusually inti- mate look into Saudi soci-ety and the bin Laden family's role within it, as well as the treatment of Saudi women. On September 11th, 2001, Carmen bin Ladin heard the news that the Twin Towers had been struck. She instinctively knew that her ex-brother-in-law was involved in these hor-rifying acts of terrorism, and her heart went out to America. She also knew that her life and the lives of her family would never be the same again. Carmen bin Ladin, half Swiss and half Persian, married into-and later divorced from-the bin Laden family and found herself inside a complex and vast clan, part of a society that she neither knew nor understood. Her story takes us inside the bin Laden family and one of the most powerful, secretive, and repressed kingdoms in the world.NOTES: Purchased from the Amazon Marketplace. SUBTITLE: My Life in Saudi Arabia

Coll, who spent 2 years writing his book on the Bin Ladin family refers to this book frequently, and it is my impression that Carmen Bin Ladin's book is a useful, if small addition to accumulating information about Osama himself. She places him within the family at a particular tijme from a sister-in-law's views. Her personal story of a good marriage that failed under the stresses of an international life with children in the late 20th early 21st century, sad, but nor remarkable.

My sense from this book and Coll's book is that Carmen as well as the rest of the very large family of sibliings and in-laws has changing views of their brother over time and are probably still trying to discover their own livews.

This was a very interesting look into life in Saudi Arabia. Having lived in a Muslim country, much of the information was not as new to me as I would have thought it would be. Still, some aspects of the Saudi lifestyle were different from the lifestyle in Qatar, where we lived.
I think that some of the elements of life in Saudi would be shocking to an outsider--wearing an abaya, needing an exit visa, women having to be separate from men, luxurious clothing, separate marriage ceremonies--but I was already familiar with all of that, and quite honestly, in Qatar none of that is any big deal.
Saudi is stricter than Qatar, however, and I found it very interesting to hear the stories about the stricter religious order and also to gain insight into what life would be like when you are married into the culture.
Being half Persian, I would be surprised if Saudi was really as much of a shock to Carmen as she seems to lead us to believe.
The countries are very different, but she would be familiar with some aspects of Islam just from her visits to Iran in her childhood.
I found that Carmen sometimes repeated herself, but it did not bother me too much--it just served to reinforce her point.
The book seemed to tease that it was going to provide more information about Osama than it actually did. I think that I came to that conclusion because Osama was mentioned so quickly in the book and his life was summarized right from the start. The book is truly about Carmen, her husband, and her daughters though....a wonderful story in itself but I felt the Osama name was used simply to draw in more readers. ( )

Enlightening book on Saudi Arabian culture and the Bin Ladin family. I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn more about lifestyles and culture of Saudis and the Bin Ladins. ( )