DAMMAM, 21 February 2007 — As the controversy over the Fatima divorce ruling continues, the mother of the woman who resides in a Dammam prison, refusing to return to the custody of the family members that forced her to divorce her husband based on tribal incompatibility, spoke to Al-Watan newspaper to give her side of the story.
“Would any of you (people) allow their daughters to stay with such a man?” asked Fatima’s mother. “Mansour (Al-Timani) made use of the tribal issue and he hid his injustices to his other wives.”
She claims that Mansour, the husband, is hiding behind the tribal issue and not disclosing full details of his background. The mother claims that Al-Timani had five children from another marriage and a second wife that he left and did not disclose this information when he approached Fatima’s father (now deceased) for her hand in marriage. The mother also claims that Al-Timani has been unemployed and is an insufficient provider for his wives.
According to the mother, whose name was not revealed in the paper, Al-Timani has concealed details of his personal life from the media just as he hid details from the family when he was courting Fatima and seeking the blessings of her father. The mother claims that her daughter was forced to asking people for zakat money, the charity payments that all Muslims must pay to the needy as one of the pillars of the religion.
The mother went on to site references in the Qur’an regarding how a man is obligated to provide for his family. The mother went on to claim that Al-Timani doesn’t provide for his former wives and children.
The mother said Al-Timani was a weak man, who was too cowardly to attend all the court hearings that initially annulled his marriage in the absence of the couple. She also says Al-Timani’s own family has distanced themselves from him.
“If his family doesn’t support him is it expected that we would leave our daughter with him?” she said. “Maybe he was able to libel us, and maybe there are some people supporting him, but this would never erase his treatment of his other wives and children. Therefore, we are not going to make him proceed in torturing our daughter. We have recently visited her and we were all happy.”
For her part, Fatima has expressed her refusal to leave prison into the custody of her half-brothers, and the mother did not explain why her daughter would make that choice if she were happy to be with her family when they visit her in prison.
Prison officials have denied Arab News further access to Fatima after publishing an exclusive interview with her.
