Princess: True story of life inside Saudi Arabia's royal family

Assalamua'laikum and Alhamdulillah as promised before, I need to make a review on this particular book entitled Princess: A true story of life inside Saudi Arabia's royal family by Jean Sasson.

This book revealed the truth behind the veiled lived of Saudi Arabia's women. This whole fact is generally about the Saudis unfair treatment towards the women and how the men of the Saudis restraint their women to have control over their own body and mind. In Saudi Arabia, women are being absolutely controlled by the men including the women sexual desires. This absolute control over the female has nothing to do with love. Women of Saudi Arabia have to cover all part of their forbidden skin from the sight of the men. If any of the women act in a disorderly manner, reveal their face or any part of their forbidden skin, the women are considered as being disgraceful to the family. Also, that kind of action will be made as a justification by the men to assault the women.

When the women act, even though not been done intentionally if it challenges the sexual desire of the men, the authority of Saudi Arabia will accept the excuses or explanation by saying that it is within the fitrah of the men to be attracted to women especially to whom who fail to cover their skin. These are the common excuses used by them to rape any women they want. Sadly, women are not allowed to give any explanation to defence themselves.

Another custom of Saudi Arabia is that women are not allowed to choose their own spouse. The marriage will be arranged by the guardian of the women. In this book, it tells us that in Saudi Arabia, most of the men have more than 1 wife. The third and fourth wife usually will be chosen amongst the teenage girl who has encounter menstruation.

The upbringing of the women in Saudis focuses on the teaching of the Quran and Hadith but purely on the fact that the women must obey the men. Also, Saudis women are being taught that the only responsibility of the wife is to entertain the husband and denying the wants of the husband for whatever reason will lead to divorce. However, divorce is not something favourable by the wife. If we think that divorce is one of the ways to escape from an abusive husband but it somehow leads to more darkness in the women's life. This is because a divorced woman will not be accepted by her own family with a reason that the family believes that the woman's failure to take care of her husband causes the divorce where it indirectly brings disgrace to the name and dignity of the family.


The whole view of this book is that woman are being put as lower than the man and this book speak the truth of how society always put the blame on the woman.

Even though there are separate roles for men and women, as directed by God, no sex should rule with unquestioned supremacy over the other (King Faisal)

I agree that we cannot deny that woman and man have separate roles. Some men can do the roles of women and vice versa. However, it still up to certain limitations. But, the limitation does not imply that one sex is better than the other. Allah SWT created both man and woman to carry out their specific duty. Man and woman are different in term of the roles they carry in this Dunya. However, this difference will make a man and a woman to complete each other imperfection.

Sadly, the mistreatment towards woman still occurred nowadays. Most circumstances required a man and woman to carry their own specific duty in order to avoid harm. But, when any harm occurred, one sex tends to put the blame on the other. In the worst situation is when the blame is put on the sex of the innocent victim. A super cliche but a simple situation that is commonly discussed in on rape issue. When any rape case went viral and being discussed on any social media, we can see how man and woman are arguing on the responsibility of the other. 

When in fact, in my opinion, if both sexes comply with the command of Allah SWT to "lower your gaze", this might not occur. The proprietor is at fault for his action because rape is forbidden in Islam as well as in the Malaysian Legal System regardless of the clothing of the woman. Just because of some woman wear something too revealing, it does not mean they consented to it. Besides, to make a judgment on their future is not our duty, but it is our duty to tell them how Allah SWT is the Most Forgiving. 

Furthermore, another main point I've got from that book is from this quote;

"men insist their wife/wives to be virgins while they themselves tried to sample as many women as possible"

We can see these customs clearly from social media and real life. In that comment section of those women who do not wear hijab, on how these men insulted the woman by calling them a whore, sluts and regard them as a future resident of the hell. When in fact, this same man who demanded a virgin woman to be his wife, have tried many other women out there. Some men are so good at acting and deceiving because some women can be so naive to trust them. 

However, it is not that all man is untrustworthy and unreliable. Some men are worth to keep, those true follower of Rasulullah SAW will be a good husband and father to the future generation. However, as hard as to find a Muslimah, it is also almost impossible to meet a man who truly follows the command of Allah SWT and conduct of Rasulullah SAW.

Never stop making dua. InshaAllah. No prayers will be left unheard and unanswered.