Pleasant Saudi Man

The country where I live is full of Arab tourists around this time of the year. I have a very good Saudi friend, Fawziah whom I have known since 1999, when she was here with her husband on their honeymoon. I met them again here in 2005 and last year her brother, Mohamed came with his mother on holidays. Although I hadn’t met them before, Fawziah emailed me and arranged for me to see them during their visit here. I was so happy to see my good friend’s family members.

Fawziah’s brother, Mohamed was such a pleasant young man. He was in the last year in his university in Saudi Arabia. I had a great time talking to Mohamed for a couple of hours. Since I couldn’t communicate well with his mother, I mostly talked to him and when it was necessary, he was an interpreter between his mother and me. Though it was the first time we met each other, we didn’t feel like that as I and he had had information on each other from Fawziah. We talked about a lot of things that might not be usually discussed at the first meeting. Before I met him, I was a little nervous as I was going to see a Saudi man. I read many books about Saudi Arabia that gave me some unpleasant image about Saudi men. He was far from being such an unpleasant man as was described in the books. On the contrary, he was far better than any other Arab male friends that I know. It is no strange to my culture that I ask a male or female friend if s/he has a boy/girlfriend. So, I asked him if he had someone special. Actually this conversation took place in the most natural way in the course of our conversation as our topic was about marriage. Mohamed said that he wanted to get a job, marry and settle down right after he finished his university, while his mother said Mohamed was too young for that. I also agreed with his mother as I believed his age, 21 was still young for marriage. However, it suddenly occurred to me that to make him think like this, there must be a legitimate reason for him. So, I asked him if he had someone special in his mind. He said, “Yes, I do. The string tied around my wrist was from her, which my mother doesn’t know” without even looking at it! Both I and Mohamed were bad enough to take advantage of his mother not being able to understand English well. I assumed that the string was like lucky charm given to him from the girl he loved. I didn’t make any further questions in front of the mother in case she could sense something from our talk I didn’t want to put Mohamed in a bad situation as it seemed that he wasn’t ready to let his secret out yet. He also said that she was the right one for him and that he would not consider marrying anyone else but her.

When I heard this spoken from the mouth of the Saudi man, I felt somehow very very happy. I wanted to admire his strong will and healthy thought toward his marriage in spite of the environment that didn’t welcome such kind of thought as his. What is normal in some places is abnormal in other places, and Mohamed’s case may apply to “abnormal” category in Saudi Arabia where arranged marriage has higher value than love marriage. Mohamed told me that his brother and his wife married by love marriage but their families tried to make the marriage look like “arranged marriage”. For me, this marriage sounded a bit tricky but if that was the way their marriage was welcomed and accepted by their society without creating problem or gossip, let it be so. They are happily married still now and I think that is the most important. I want to say, “Let Saudi parents use whatever tricks they need to use to make their children’s love marriage look arranged marriage” because this kind of tricky marriage is still healthier and happier than marriage where 2 strangers are arranged to marry without knowing each other or feeling enough love for each other.

Meeting Mohamed lightened up my view of Saudi men. He has just finished his university and got a job in a bank. I hope he will marry the lady who gave him the string!!