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Ebook626 pages10 hours
Growing Up Bin Laden
By Jean Sasson
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
As the western world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden has fought to keep his personal life a mystery loyalty and fear keeping those who know him from speaking out until now. For the first time, two of Osama’s closest family members, his first wife Najwa and their fourth son Omar, go behind the headlines to reveal the truth about the character and life of a man feared and revered around the globe. In gripping detail, they recount the drama, tensions, and everyday activities of the man they knew as a husband and father. Married at fifteen, Najwa describes the transformation of the quiet, serious young man she fell in love with into an authoritarian husband and stern father, an entrepreneur, and finally the leader of a complex international terrorist network. Uprooted from a life of extraordinary luxury and privilege in Saudi Arabia, they suddenly found themselves living life on the run, fleeing from country to country under assumed names and fake passports. Omar describes how he and his siblings were brought up in remote ranches and fortified Afghani mountain camps, handling Kalashnikovs and learning desert survival skills. Their eventual escape from Afghanistan would come just days before the terrible events of 9/11 changed the world forever. With unprecedented access and exclusive family photographs, Jean Sasson, author of the bestselling Princess, presents the story that we were never meant to hear.
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Reviews for Growing Up Bin Laden
Rating: 4.153849230769231 out of 5 stars
4/5
26 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Life WAS more agreeable when my father was far, far away", 10 January 2016This review is from: Growing Up Bin Laden (Paperback)Ghost written by Jean Sasson, the insider information about Osama's real character and family life comes from his first wife, Najwa, and fourth son, Omar.Najwa recalls her teenage marriage, her husband's promises to protect her like a prized pearl ...which all seems so tragic as the bright, normal Syrian girl has to take the veil and unquestioningly accept her husband's decisions, whether it's to take more wives or to forbid the family to use the air-conditioning and fridge (as all modern inventions are 'un-Islamic': strangely that doesn't include the fast cars that Osama so likes.Meanwhile Omar recalls life as one of a huge family (his mother alone had eleven children), his father's unbending sternness and devotion to jihad - even asking his sons to volunteer as suicide bombers. And as Osama's antics cause countries to 'evict' him, the family moved from the comfort of Saudi Arabia to Sudan to the bleak, freezing Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan....Very interesting read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really liked the segments by Najwa, Osama's first wife. She really gives us a great picture of who Osama was as a man and as a husband, that really challenges the stereotypes we are bombarded with by politicians and the corporate media. By and large, he seems to have cared a lot about her and treated her as well as he could, or well as he could under the circumstances he generated. She is a woman who still clearly loves her husband and despite everything remains loyal to his memory. There are times when she seems cognizant that something is wrong, as when she discusses the loneliness she felt when Osama took his second wife, but found comfort in the patriarchal dogma of her religion. She is a sensitive and loving woman, and a smart woman, albeit a smart woman whose dedication to her husband and her children overrode any concern for her own welfare.Omar's accounts are also interesting. Although his father treated his wife and daughters well, he was much harsher in raising his sons. In a large way, Osama saw his sons as the Islamic soldiers of the future, and raised him towards this purpose. A sensitive boy, Omar would not be molded the way his father wanted, and craved for his love. I can understand why he broke from his father, and I can understand and respect why he has striven for peace, particularly in light of his life situation, but I don't necessarily understand why the book tries to construct him as brave. It could be said that he was brave in standing up to his father the way he did, but I don't see that it was particularly brave to flee his family in Afghanistan to live the life of luxury and privilege that he was accustomed to as a child. He was also far less than brave or else extremely naïve to deny that Saudi Arabia was behind the assassination attempt against his father when they were living in Sudan. Presumably, Omar recognized that he would wear out his welcome in Saudi Arabia were he to make the obvious conclusions about the actions of the Saudi royals. All of this said, Osama's son seems to be a good man with a troubled past, trying to find his way forward. His relationship with his father provides the reader with a helpful and interesting alternative to Najwa's more intimate perspective.Jean Sasson's commentary is rather irritating for the most part. Her purpose in this book seems simply to be to reconcile these first person accounts humanizing Osama with the xenophobic accounts of the corporate media portraying him as an inhuman monster. Although it is true that she provides some context in certain parts of the book where it is helpful, on the whole I am mostly grateful that she wrote as little in the book as she did. Her closing section is particularly annoying, being in total context to much of the rest of the book. But on the whole I am glad that she has put this book together for publication. It is probably the most honest biography available on Osama bin Laden.