Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World [Paperback]

I picked this up in a bookshop almost by accident, having vaguely remembered something about the fact that Bin Laden's wife and son had left his compound shortly before the attack on the Twin Towers. Frankly, even if it hadn't been about one of the world's most wanted men and his family, it would still have been riveting just for the glimpse it gives on another world. How many novels or even factual books can you pick up written by Arab women about their closeted lives, their hopes, their fears, their secret existences - the things they are forced to accept or endure?

Yet here is Najwa Bin Laden - cousin, childhood friend and ultimately wife of decades of Osama - mother to 11 of his children - telling her moving and heartbreaking tale in a way that no loving mother could fail to relate to. The decency and gentle temperament of both Najwa and her son Omar, who for so long went along, out of love and respect, with the wishes of Osama bin Laden, shines through. For him they endured constant domestic instability, separation, and utter privation - with a lifestyle steadily deteriorating from comfortable residences in Jeddah and Mesina - and a rather less good life in Khartoum, to the misery of life in storm-tossed rock shacks on top of Tora Bora mountain - with Najwa enduring pregnancy in these miserable conditions. Short of food and with not even basic sanitation or cooking facilities for her enormous family and that of her sister wives - who were dragged around with her along with their children too - she put up with everything without complaint - even as he doubts and fears increased as she watched her husband turning into a world pariah.

It must have taken Omar enormous courage to cross his father as he did finally, making clear to his father that he found his fanaticism and love of war utterly wrong, but he did the right thing and saved his pregnant mother and smallest siblings by persuading their father to let them leave Afghanistan, although one trembled for the other young children that Osama forced her to leave behind, motherless. After the 9/11 attacks Najwa could never return to her children in Afghanistan, even after her baby was born.

From their story you can see certain things - that Osama had the potential to be a great man - a sort of Arab Ghandi - had he but been a man of peace. He was of the land and loved nature, involving himself in ambitious agricultural and building schemes which could have usefully absorbed his energies had he but abandoned jihad. But his post-Afghan war frustration - that of a soldier addicted to combat combined wih his religious goals - and co-jihadists like Ayman al Zawahiri - led him to increase his military activity. He went along with them, dragging his family into the mire alongside him. The finer qualities in him were strength of character, courage, respect, and a kind of tribal honour that led him to employ and protect fellow Mujahadeen from the Afghan war who were no longer allowed to return to their own countries. His downfall was his arrogance, fanaticism and blind obsession with violent action - concerning both his faith and his hatred for America. Omar makes a good point when he refers to the truth of America - that most of America doesn't care one way or the other much about Islam or Muslims - as long as they're left in peace. It's politics that's the problem.

There was something in Najwa's part of the story that illuminated her. She came across as almost saintly and such a loving, loyal person. In any faith she would be regarded as exceptional.

The story is gripping anyway; but the inherent sadness of the book seems to steadily increase - until the end when the near-madness and heartbreak really shake you.

A man does not make a family, this is a fascinating book looking at the life and trials of a family and despite all the challenges and heartache they are a family like any other. It will change the way you look at things!

A very interesting book with lots and lots of facts about Osama's life. Very well researched, organized and beautifully written. Definitely worth a read !!