Saudi Arabia is viewed as home to the holiest sites in Islam and all Saudis are naturally born Muslims. One might expect that Islam would be foremost in the lives of Saudis and practices of Islam would take precedence. However expectations do not always lead to realities. For example, in Islam a woman does have the right to choose her future husband. She also has the right to turn down a suiter. She is not to be forced into a marriage against her will. Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, the top religious authority in the Kingdom, stated “Forcing a woman to marry someone she does not want and preventing her from wedding [the man] whom she chooses … is not permissible,”
Samia, a surgeon, has come forward with her story. She is from Medina but now lives at a government run women’s shelter. Simply said, Samia wants to choose her own husband. Instead she has received increasing pressure and abuse by her father to marry a younger cousin. This is a professional woman who saves lives every day but in the confines of her father’s home she was expected to have no backbone or voice. He knew best on all matters which included taking a majority share of Samia’s monthly salary.
When Samia defied her father’s choice of a husband, he reacted by locking her in her bedroom for weeks at a time. To further control her and break her spirit, he and Samia’s brothers beat her with a water hose. Finally, Samia could not take any more of the pressure and abuse from her father and she fled to the shelter. She filed a complaint against her father in a Medina court. The judge, Ali Abdulaziz Al-Sudais, instead of being sympathetic to Samia’s plight and her father’s blatant disregard of the practices of Islam, ruled in favor of the father. Al-Sudais dismissed Samia’s case calling her a disobedient daughter and one who needed psychiatric care! Al-Sudais ruled in favor of the father in spite of Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti statement that a woman should not be forced to marry against her will!
Samia comes from a tribal family where tribal customs are expected to be followed, even if the tribal custom is contradictory to Islam. Jeddah attorney, Ahmed Al-Sudairy, has taken on Samia’s case for her to receive the natural rights given to a Muslim woman.
If there is a ruling in Samia’s favor, her case will be monumental towards enforcing changes in the Saudi mahrem (guardianship) program which is often used as a mechanism to control women.
