Inside the Kingdom My Life in Saudi Arabia

by Bin Ladin, Carmen

• ISBN13: 9780446694889
• ISBN10: 0446694886
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-13
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

The New York Times bestseller by Osama bin Laden's sister-in-law that provides a penetrating look inside the Bin Laden family, Saudi society, and the treatment of Saudi women is now in paperback with a new chapter. In 1974, Carmen, half-Swiss and half-Persian, married into the Bin Laden family. She was young and in love, an independent European woman hurled into a society she neither knew nor understood. Her story takes us inside the Bin Laden family and a power structure in which men regularly subjugate their wives. It also tells of the author's own personal battle to keep custody of her three daughters after her 1988 separation from her husband. INSIDETHEKINGDOM dares to pull off the veil that conceals one of the most secretive countries in the world, revealing the intrigues and conflicts within its most infamous family.

Author Biography

Carmen bin Ladin, born Carmen Dufour, in Geneva, Switzerland, is a member of the bin Laden family. She was raised in Lausanne by her mother only in Switzerland with three little sisters (Salomé, Béatrice, and Magnolia). Her father is Swiss (Dufour) and her mother Persian (Mirdoht-Sheybani).

Carmen (56 years old) was married to one of Osama bin Laden's older brothers, Yeslam bin Ladin, until 1988. They were married in 1974 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She has three daughters, Wafah Dufour (born 1975), Najia (born 1978), and Noor (born 1987).

Table of Contents

A Letter to My Daughters	ix
9/11	1	(9)
A Secret Garden	10	(7)
Falling in Love	17	(12)
My Saudi Wedding	29	(17)
America	46	(9)
Life with the Bin Ladens	55	(8)
The Patriarch	63	(7)
Life as an Alien	70	(15)
Two Mothers, Two Babies	85	(6)
My Own Chief Inmate	91	(16)
The Brothers	107	(10)
1979	117	(12)
Yeslam	129	(8)
Little Girls	137	(11)
A Saudi Couple	148	(9)
Sisters in Islam	157	(11)
Princes and Princesses	168	(15)
Leaving Saudi Arabia	183	(16)
Conclusion	199	(6)
Postscript	205	(9)
Acknowledgments	214