Inside the Kingdom
My Life In Saudi Arabia
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Narrated by:
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Shohreh Aghdashloo
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By:
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Carmen bin Ladin
About this listen
In 1974, Carmen, half-Swiss and half-Persian, married into the bin Ladin family. She was young and in love, an independent European woman about to join a complex clan and a culture she neither knew nor understood. In Saudi Arabia, she was forbidden to leave her home without the head-to-toe black abaya that completely covered her. Her face could never be seen by a man outside the family. And according to Saudi law, her husband could divorce her at will, without any kind of court procedure, and take her children away from her forever.
Carmen was an outsider among the bin Ladin wives, their closets full of haute couture dresses, their rights so restricted that they could not go outside their homes, not even to cross the street, without a chaperone. The author takes us inside the hearts and minds of these women, always at the mercy of the husbands who totally control their lives, and always convinced that their religion and culture are superior to any other. And as Carmen tells of her struggle to save her marriage and raise her daughters to be freethinking young women, she describes this family's ties to the Saudi royal family and introduces us to the ever loyal bin Ladin brothers, including one particular brother-in-law she was to encounter: Osama.
In 1988, in Switzerland, Carmen bin Ladin separated from her husband and began one of her toughest battles: to gain the custody of her three daughters. Now, with her candid memoir, she dares to pull off the veils that conceal one of the most powerful, secretive, and repressive countries in the world, and the bin Ladin family's role within it.
©2004 Carmen Bin Ladin (P)2004 Time Warner AudioBooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
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At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parents' decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country
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Syria as never read before
- By rami hachwi on 09-17-18
By: Alia Malek
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For the Love of a Son
- One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child
- By: Jean Sasson
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From the time she was a little girl, Maryam rebelled against the terrible second-class existence that was her destiny as an Afghan woman. She had witnessed the miserable fate of her grandmother and three aunts, and wished she had been born a boy. As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life. A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp, but her father arranged a traditional marriage to a fellow Afghan, who turned out to be a violent man....
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About all stories have a happy ending
- By Stacy on 04-04-16
By: Jean Sasson
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Excellent Daughters
- The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World
- By: Katherine Zoepf
- Narrated by: Katherine Zoepf
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or traveled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Only a generation ago, female adolescence as we know it in the West did not exist in the Middle East. There were only children and married women. Today, young Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in order to live independently, to delay marriage, and to pursue professional goals.
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Best book on Middle East written this decade
- By Zuzana B on 07-02-17
By: Katherine Zoepf
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Finding Samuel Lowe
- China, Jamaica, Harlem
- By: Paula Williams Madison
- Narrated by: Paula Williams Madison
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.
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Fascinating
- By ayodele higgs on 01-27-16
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Mighty Be Our Powers
- How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War; a Memoir
- By: Leymah Gbowee, Carol Mithers
- Narrated by: Kimberly Scott
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As a young woman growing up in Africa, 17-year-old Leymah Gbowee was crushed by a savage war when violence reached her native Monrovia, depriving her of the education she yearned for and claiming the lives of relatives and friends. As war continued to ravage Liberia, Gbowee’s bitterness turned to rage-fueled action as she realized that women bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts.
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Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and
- By Kathy on 10-07-11
By: Leymah Gbowee, and others
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Diana
- Her True Story - in Her Own Words
- By: Andrew Morton
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney, Caroline Langrishe
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The sensational biography of Princess Diana, now revised to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death. When Diana: Her True Story - in Her Own Words was first published in 1992, it forever changed the way the public viewed the British monarchy.
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Wonderful overall with one issue...
- By globewest on 07-02-17
By: Andrew Morton
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Daring to Drive
- A Saudi Woman's Awakening
- By: Manal al-Sharif
- Narrated by: Lameece Issaq
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A ferociously intimate memoir by a devout woman from a modest family in Saudi Arabia who became the unexpected leader of a courageous movement to support women's right to drive.
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The rain begins with a single drop
- By Sara on 07-01-17
By: Manal al-Sharif
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Stalin's Daughter
- The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
- By: Rosemary Sullivan
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
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If the Oceans Were Ink
- An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran
- By: Carla Power
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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If the Oceans Were Ink is Carla Power's eye-opening story of how she and her longtime friend, Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, found a way to confront ugly stereotypes and persistent misperceptions that were cleaving their communities. Their friendship - between a secular American and a madrasa-trained sheikh - had always seemed unlikely, but now they were frustrated and bewildered by the battles being fought in their names.
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WAY TOO LONG-but good material
- By teri_novabern on 07-30-16
By: Carla Power
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Mother Tongue
- A Saga of Three Generations of Balkan Women
- By: Tania Romanov
- Narrated by: Becky Parker
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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What is your mother tongue? Sometimes the simplest questions take a book to answer. Such is the case with Tania Romanov's story of exile, emigration, and immigration and how native language can be a powerful touchstone for the sense of home. The unrelenting consequences of 100 years of Balkan wars force three generations of Croatian women to flee their homelands multiple times. Eventually, Tania, a successfully integrated American immigrant from Eastern Europe, journeys back to her fractured homeland with her mother to unravel the secrets of their shared past.
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Ljiljana Popovic, born in former Yugoslavia
- By Ljiljana Popovic on 03-18-21
By: Tania Romanov
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Marina and Lee
- The Tormented Love and Fatal Obsession Behind Lee Harvey Oswald's Assassination of John F. Kennedy
- By: Priscilla Johnson McMillan
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray, Joseph Finder
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina and Lee is one of the best and truest audiobooks about the Kennedy assassination. Priscilla Johnson McMillan came to the story with a unique knowledge of the two main characters. In the 1950s she knew Kennedy well for a time when he was hospitalized with Addison's disease. She talked to him frequently, brought him books, knew his wife, and formed a strong opinion of the sort of man he was. What is astonishing is that she also knew Lee Harvey Oswald.
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Now I know why he did it
- By Rodd on 06-09-14
What listeners say about Inside the Kingdom
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mohammad Sabeh
- 07-09-19
I am saudi and here is what I think.
Her story was way long back and for me I cannot recall that saudi has been this way as she described. She clearly had so much hate towards the country and I can understand why. She wrote about the country based on how she saw it. However, everybody I met that are on her age say that saudi was very simple and people loved and cared for each other and life was very joyful. Nowadays, saudi is not very different from any other country. Women are allowed to drive and we have concerts and cinemas. Nevertheless, despite all that. Women her age now still say that they miss the old saudi... Saudi is a very safe place for women where they can walk freely and feel safe. They are respected everywhere they go.
I was born and raised in saudi until the age of 18 then i have moved to the US for 3 years and then moved to dubai. However, I still love saudi and I feel that it’s a really great place to live in.
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2 people found this helpful
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- janice
- 02-22-16
interesting
a very interesting story, good insight into the culture and struggles of West versus Islam
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3 people found this helpful
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- J. Tiefel
- 11-08-09
A Real Education
I love to learn about different cultures and this book certainly opened my eyes to the way of life in Saudi Arabia. The narrator's accent certainly made the story sound like it might have come from Carmen's lips. A fascinating read!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tom
- 06-24-08
Revealing
One hears about mistreatment of women in Saudi Arabia. This is one such story.
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- AUK
- 01-31-24
Great Story!
Really enjoyed her life story. Her daughter Noor, is a great journalist & must take after her mothers writings!
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- Billie Braithwaite-jones
- 07-25-19
An inside look at the kingdom.
A searing inside view if the Saudi kingdom. This memoir confirmed much of what I'd heard and hoped was not true. She was able to get out and keep her children. My heart aches for those women who couldn't.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Joni
- 03-23-13
Couldn't wait to pick it up again
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
yes and I have because it had a good story and was so interesting.
What other book might you compare Inside the Kingdom to and why?
Growing up Bin Ladin, because they were about the same topic.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
many
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- Laura
- 02-27-11
A true insight !
It seems that the global civilisation merges us into one world. But, in truth, it doesn't and not far away we can meet a civilisation more distant than if it were born on Mars ! Only a bit more influential. An interesting travel into the totally foreign land !
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- Deborah
- 09-22-05
Pretty close, but not everyone agrees...
Carmen has done an excellent job of presenting her story. This is a pretty good look into the restrictive society in Sauida Arabia. However, having lived in Saudi Arabia myself for 6 years, I can say that many Saudi women LOVE their lives. I think it is extremely dangerous for Americans to view any lifestyle unlike their own as somehow bad or less valuable. As an American woman in Saudi Arabia, I was startled to find that American women are pittied by many well educated, worldly, well traveled Saudi women. Pittied, you say? They think it sad that American women are forced to work outside the home, do their own housework and laundry, taxi the kids back and forth to school and extracurriculars, and don't have chauffers. Carmen had many of her freedoms curtailed in that rigidly Islamic society, but as one very wise Saudi pointed out to me: "American women cannot walk safely alone at night in any American city. They are kidnapped, raped and murdered. You pay a very high price for your 'freedom'." Food for thought?
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22 people found this helpful
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- Lilly-Marie Lamarl
- 01-07-18
A decidedly western take on an eastern culture
The most likable think about this book is Carmen, the protagonist. She is sincere and her shock over 911, she is a deeply devoted mother, and seemingly a fun, outspoken woman with commitment to a gender equality, freedom of thought; basically humanitarian. On the flipside though, I find it very concerning, the way in which she others Saudi culture. It makes sense that she doesn’t like living in Saudi Arabia, a much stricter, more fundamentalist society than the one she grew up in. But much of the book is given over to her criticizing everything about it, whether it be the behavior of the other women, her husband’s House, or the ubiquitous sandstorms. My guess is that there are some truths about the Culture of Saudi women that can be gleaned from reading this book, but at the same time, the book is hard to read because Carmen doesn’t reflect on how it is that she so quickly jumped into a life in Saudi Arabia without thinking ahead about well she could be happy there, and doesn’t seem to give the culture a chance. It is as if she assumes that we will be shocked and outraged by even the most basic of Saudi customs just because we are mostly Westerners reading this. I fear that we are not give an insight into why Osama bin Laden did what he did, but only very negative perspective of the culture from which he arose, a culture which, even Carmen says, found his extreme religiosity shocking and didn’t welcome him as a leader. As for the writing it’s… Average two. There is virtually no scene and no dialogue, and some redundancy here and there. If you choose to read this book, I would say just pick up what you can about Saudi Arabia culture, but be very, very careful about not being drawn into the level of subjectivity with which the story is told. This book serves to divide east and west, not create a bridge between them, and this is worrisome.
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3 people found this helpful