Phyllis Chesler, 72, is a feminist scholar and a professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at City University of New York. In her 14th book, “An American Bride in Kabul” (Palgrave Macmillan) out early next month, she shares for the first time the story of the five months she spent, as a young bride, held prisoner in a Afghan household.
NY Post It is 1959. I am only 18 when my prince — a dark, older, handsome, westernized foreigner who had traveled abroad from his native home in Afghanistan — bedazzles me. We meet at Bard College, where he is studying economics and politics and I am studying literature on scholarship.
Naive and in love, I married a man from Kabul — only to discover the horrible life of a fundamentalist Muslim wife. is the son of one of the founders of the modern banking system in Afghanistan. He wears designers sunglasses and bespoke suits and when he visits New York City, he stays at the Plaza.
He is also Muslim. I am Jewish, raised in an Orthodox home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the daughter of Polish immigrants. My dad worked door-to-door selling soda and seltzer.
But none of this matters. We don’t talk about religion. Instead, we stay up all night discussing film, opera and theater. We are bohemians. We date for two years. Then, when I express my desire to travel, he asks me to marry him.
“There is no other way for us to travel together in the Muslim world,” he says. Like a complete heartsick fool, I agree.
My parents are outraged and hysterical. They warn me that no good will come of this union. Little did I know then how right they would be. We marry in a civil ceremony in Poughkeepsie with no family present.
For our honeymoon, we travel around Europe with a plan to stop off in Kabul to meet his family. I did not know that this would be our final destination.
When we land, 30 relatives await our arrival. Among them, not one but three mothers-in-law. I am too shocked to speak, too shocked to question what these three women might mean for my future.
I learn that my real mother-in-law, Abdul-Kareem’s biological mother, is only my father-in-law’s first wife. Her name is Bebugul. There are bear hugs and kisses all around. The family is warm and inviting — I try to forget about my husband’s glaring omission.
But before the caravan of black Mercedes-Benzes can leave, an airport official demands that I turn over my American passport. I refuse.
Everyone stops. Both the official and my husband assure me that this is a mere formality. It will soon be returned to me, so I reluctantly relinquish it.
I will never see my passport again.
That means — I would soon learn — that I would not be able to leave Afghanistan at will. I am now subject to the laws and custom of Afghanistan, and as a Afghan woman, that means hardly any rights at all.
My husband’s father owns a compound comprised of numerous two-story European-style houses where the various families sleep with patios, expensive Afghan wool carpeting, indoor gardens, and verandas.
I am only 20, and I am now a member of this household, which consists of one patriarch, three wives, 21 children (who range in age from infancy to their 30s), two grandchildren, at least one son-in-law, one daughter-in-law and an unknown number of servants and relatives.
This is my new home. My prison. My harem.
Our arrival is celebrated with a feast of unending and delicious dishes. Because of my foreign stomach, the foods — kebabs, rice dishes, yogurts, nuts — are baked with Crisco instead of ghee, an evil-smelling, rancid, clarified butter that is loved by locals but wreaks havoc on a non-native’s stomach. The smell of ghee alone can make you throw up if you’re unused to it.
Abdul-Kareem comes alive during the celebration. He speaks Dari (even though I cannot) and leaves me with the other women.
I am unprepared for my first-ever Muslim prayer service. Suddenly, all the men drop to the floor on all fours, prostrating themselves. I had never seen Abdul-Kareem pray before.
When I awake the next morning, my husband is gone. I am completely alone. And I will spend every morning and afternoon that follows alone with my mother-in-law and female relatives.
As the excitement over our arrival wears off, so does my special treatment. The household meals are now only made with ghee. I can’t eat any of it. Secretly I stow away canned goods that I indulge on in the brief moments that I’m left alone.
Two weeks into my confinement and I have only left the compound twice — both times with a calvary of people guarding and watching. I am bored, so bored.
One day, I decide to sunbathe on the private terrace that adjoins my bedroom. I don a pink bikini covered in purple polka dots. Then I hear a loud commotion that sounds like men yelling at each other. “What are you doing? You have managed to upset all of Kabul,” my husband says.
He explains that a group of workmen a quarter-mile away caught sight of a “naked woman” and could not concentrate on work. A delegation had descended upon our house to demand that all women, especially I, be properly dressed.
I start laughing.
“Please, please just come in and put something on,” he says. “Rumors spread here quickly. By tonight, they’ll be telling their friends we are running a brothel.” I do as I’m told.
Later I write in my diary: “I have no freedom at all. No opportunity to meet anyone or go anywhere. His family watches me suspiciously. Am I getting paranoid?” In fact, I have reason to be paranoid.
I discover that mother-in-law has instructed the servants to stop boiling my drinking water. Because the sewage system consists of open irrigation ditches that are used as public bathrooms and for drinking water, I contract dysentery.
Perhaps she thinks I am already “Afghan enough” to withstand any and all germs. Perhaps she wants me dead.
She then begins her conversion campaign. She gives me prayer rugs and prayer beads and urges me to convert to Islam.
If I don’t, I think, will she continue her campaign to sicken and kill me?
The next day she barges into my room with a servant and confiscates my precious hoard of canned goods. “Our food isn’t good enough for her — she eats from cans,” she says.
I am her captive, her prisoner; she, my jailer, might treat me more decently if I find ways to please her. This is difficult for me to write about but I did it. I repeat the words: “There is one God, Allah, and Mohammed was his prophet.”
I am now a Muslim — at least in my mother-in-law’s eyes — but that still isn’t enough for her. When she is angry at me, she spits at me. She calls me “Yahud” or “Jew.” When I complain to my husband, he dismisses me as being dramatic.
I must escape.
Looking both ways, I walk out feeling like a criminal. I board a bus and notice that all the other women are at the back of the bus wearing burqas. I am horrified, slightly hysterical.
Meanwhile, all eyes are on me. I am without even a head scarf or a coat. In this country, a naked face is almost the same as fully bared breasts. I am lost and dizzy with fear. My husband is informed of my escape, and he finds me and brings me home.
But the desire to flee still nags at me.
“I have been here for three months and have been allowed out only five or six times,” I write in my diary. “Is this imprisonment meant to tame me, break me, teach me to accept my fate as an Afghan woman? I want to go home.”
Abdul-Kareem is fed up with my unhappiness. “He has begun to hit me,” I write. “Had I known something like this could ever happen, had I known that we would have to live with his mother and brothers, I would never have come here.”
I attempt a second escape to the American embassy. But once I arrive, I’m escorted away. Without a US passport, I no longer have any rights as an American.
I try twice more to escape — one with a return to the American embassy and another with the help of a friendly German expat. But before I can set any plans in action, I fall deathly ill.
My temperature climbs to 105 degrees, but I receive no sympathy from my family. After days of struggling — and falling into a coma—a local doctor is called. He diagnoses me with hepatitis, explaining there’s nothing more he can do.
This is my lowest point. I fear that if I die here I will be buried in a Muslim cemetery, forever forgotten. I continue to fight for my survival and beg to see an American doctor. My family agrees, but only if I am closely guarded.
The doctor, however, manages to get me alone for a brief moment and tells me that I must return to the States for treatment. Then he orders a nurse to give me fluids. The next thing I remember is someone tugging at my IV line.
It’s my mother-in-law. I call out and am rescued by a sister-in-law, who sits with me through the night. I tell my husband about his mother’s attempt on my life. He dismisses it.
But he now realizes that if I survive this disease, I will leave him. So he contrives a way to make me stay.
That night, a he climbs into my bed when I am feverish and sick and forces himself on me. I’m too weak to fight back. He is trying to impregnate me because if I am carrying his child, I will not be allowed to leave. Slowly, I recover. But I have missed two periods.
I have to get out and it has to be now. I have only one card left to play: the royal card. I must appeal to my father-in-law, who alone has the power to return to me to my home. I send word through a servant that I would like to see him.
He arrives and almost immediately says: “I think it will be best if you leave with our approval on an Afghan passport, which I have obtained for you. You have been granted a six-month visa for reasons of health.”
He must have decided that he did not want a sick — or dead — American daughter-in-law who was trying to flee on his hands. Perhaps he never wanted a Jewish American daughter-in-law at all.
He already has the passport in hand: #17384. I have it still.
I feel saved; I feel graced. My husband grows incensed and begins to hit me and call me names. But I stand my ground. Even when I board the first plane out, he still believes that as a dutiful wife I will one day return to him.
When the plane takes off, I am filled with more fierce joy than my body can contain. And when I finally land on American soil, I literally kiss the ground.
I suffer a painful miscarriage shortly after my return. My body made that decision for me. I rush past any anguish, return to college, find a job and apply to graduate school. Two years after returning, I get my marriage to Abdul-Kareem annulled.
I’ve never told this story in detail before, but felt that I must now. Because I hear some westerners preach the tortured cultural relativism that excuses the mistreatment of women in the name of Islam. Because I see the burqa on the streets of Paris and New York and feel that Afghanistan has followed me back to America.
I call myself a feminist — but not just any feminist. My kind of feminism was forged in the fires of Afghanistan. There I received an education — an expensive, almost deadly one — but a valuable one, too.
I understand firsthand how deep-seated the hatred of women is in that culture. I see how endemic indigenous barbarism and cruelty is and unlike many other intellectuals and feminists, I don’t try to romanticize or rationalize it.
I got out, and I will never return.
Adapted with permission from “An American Bride in Kabul” (Palgrave MacMillan) by Phyllis Chesler, out Oct. 1. The name of her husband and his family have been changed.
Islam lives in fear, intimidation, threat and unhappy life.
In her defense, it was 1959. People only knew about “muslims” through magazines and movies. Afghanistan must of been even more of a shithole back then, though.
Quite the opposite. I know a Montreal couple who lived in Kabul for 10 years. It was beautiful and secular at that time.
man lady i am sorry but your dumb
Just think what Afghanistan is like NOW as it’s sliding back under control of the Taliban.
Similar to the 3 girls who were kidnapped and raped by Ariel Castro.
Typical leftie/muslim response. Target one isolated incident to justify the whole of muslim atrocities.
Castro was not the most attractive of men and he had deep psychological issues re women most probably as a result of rejection. The majority of non-muslim rejected men do not act this way.
In Islam, it is part and parcel of muslim men’s upbringing. The child grows up seeing his mother, and all other females around him, subjugated and used as tools to satisfy the male’s whims.
The difference between Castro and muslim men’s attitude towards women: Castro admitted what he had done was wrong and he had the decency to hang himself out of shame.
Except in Afghanistan, it’s all legal.
O/t.
I’ve just spotted the counter below. Does that mean that this individual story has had 44906 hits?
logdon, that is the hit counter for the site TOTAL HITS, 45 million+
Love, that’s what she did. Love is a disease too, as well as pleasure.
idiots, idiots these women will never learn, if you talk to them about islam & muslim men they will say this is love and you have no right to tell me who should or shouldn’t I love, they deserve what is happening to them
Use reverse psychology……………when you find a woman in love with muslim
or even thinking about it………..tell them you think its a good idea and then elaborate on what she can expect as a wife of muslim.
Get 4 – 8 main talking points out calmly politely on what life as a muslim woman means and wish her all the best. What you do is sow the seed of a thought process and then its for the girl to decide her fate.
More you try to warn them or speak against muslims the more they will decide
to go ahead as pART of a rebellious nature most of us have.
or give every girl above 12 year this book as a birthday gift to save her from
such a tragedy
As Ali sina , anti-islam activist says “Best way to defeat Islam is by speaking the
truth about Islam” …………….and that why all muslim organisations including the OIC want any cricism of islam banned ., while they push the sugar coated lies in scholls about the so called greatness of islam.
send pelosi,hillary,fonda,every liberal woman there for a yr.no driving,no going out in public without a male relative; & oh yeah,get accused of any sexual “misconduct” hope you love stones, rocks ladies!
This l happened some 50 years ago and STILL desperate dumb ass Western women today are making the huge mistake of getting involved with Muzzie men only to end up in disasterous situations where it may cost them their lives. Do these women live in a delusional state of mind convincing themselves that their Muzzie man “is different, he is not like the others”. Justifying him like the Dhimmis of this world believe most Muzzies are peaceful and loving and extremists are only the ‘few’.
To all the delusional dingbats whom are involved with a Muzzie… sure go ahead and marry him , but dont piss & moan to the world when things go pear shape and expect your home country/embassy to pull you out if self inflicted trouble. As Judge Judy says “you picked him why are your choices everyone elses problem?”.
Sorry but my sympathy for these stupid women is ZERO!
I agree with you “OZ”, she made her bed–she should lie in it. So many thoroughly stupid western women have quoted that fatal line: “He’s different”. They are all the same—it’s islam, ’nuff said.
I met Phyllis once at her summer home in the Hampton. i was occasionaly dated an Israeli guy, younger than I,
His good friend met and married, I believe, Phyllis Chessler, For the life of me, canot remember his name,
the guy i dated perfunctorily was Yossi, His friend was same age, and Phyllis was older than I, so she married an Israeli much younger than herself.
True story, Wish I could remember his name, but only met him twice, I believe at time of the Hamptons party, he was not yet there. I do believe that in one of her books , she refers to him. her young Israeli husband,
GH, I would like to meet her.
I’d figure the job of a state embassy is to look after the welfare of its citizens. After all, the government has been extorting tax dollars out of them shouldn’t they get something for their money? Otherwise, why have embassies at all?
Western (even if Jewish) “Feminist” actually opposes islam in public?! That’s a first!
“I call myself a feminist — but not just any feminist. My kind of feminism was forged in the fires of Afghanistan. There I received an education — an expensive, almost deadly one — but a valuable one, too.
I understand firsthand how deep-seated the hatred of women is in that culture. I see how endemic indigenous barbarism and cruelty is and unlike many other intellectuals and feminists, I don’t try to romanticize or rationalize it.”
Well said, Phyllis. Best line of all. Unlike many other intellectuals and feminists, I don’t try to romanticize or rationalize it.”
Sometimes, some people can only learn the truth through painfully hard earned experience.
Thank G-d she escaped. How many others entered these roach motels never to be heared of again?
Sad and so typical of these stories she is lucky she got away.
I sympathize with Phyllis Chessler but I do not understand her. She says that she loves muslim women because she used to be one. Yet muslim women fully cooperate with the men to commit these crimes. It was her mother-in-law that made her sick, not the men. It was the women that watched over her so that she could not leave.
Muslim women are not nearly as helpless as they are portrayed. It is muslim women that force female mutilation on their daughters. Even when they come to the US and are no longer forced under sharia law, they still do it. It is muslim women that are fully in league with their husbands to kill wayward daughters. It is muslim women that will not leave islam even after being doused with acid or badly beaten and locked up by their husbands.
When muslim women immigrate to Western countries, they can get plenty of help in leaving their husbands and vile customs behind. But the great majority do not.
So why does Phyllis Chessler love muslim women? They are just as bad as the men.
Could it be Stockholm Syndrome?
Dhimmi Syndrome more like it.
Thank you for sharing this story. Such a powerful formative experience.
I don’t believe a word of it.
This woman is a well-respected journalist. She has no reason to lie. And who the hell are you?
A Dhimmi 🙂
I concur with BNI. Phyllis Chesler is very well known and highly respected. Next time before uttering ignorance, do a quick Google on the name.
I had read about her experience many years ago. Phyllis Chesler is a serious scholar with impeccable reputation and numerous research papers and books already under her belt. I believe the reason for publishing this book now with more details is to warn other young women away from the same trap.
And when that fire bell rings do you also merely shrug and say I don’t believe it?
I suppose there was nowhere for her to go to get advice before she took the big step, I hope that, young Ladies in the West can have the EXTREEME differences between the East & West explained to them now, before they take a complete life-changing leap into the unknown.
how can this come to be an 18 yr old orthodox jewish girl left to her own devices , as a fairly liberal catholic father of three at the time rebellious daughters i have run off my share of fancy dans sparking around have pissed on their fires quick enough where’s the father fit into this horror story . always check to see if your little girl is happy no matter where in the world she ends up
Unfortunately, Ms. Chesler made a seriously wrong decision and I have seen this over and over through the years. The women just don’t get it. If HE has any ties whatsoever to the Middle East, they are doomed. Once they get you in their country under Sharia Law, you can do nothing but escape any way necessary.
Again, I am very disappointed in our embassy and have found with other personal experiences that the embassies are only there to *make nice* and *be pretty*…any attempt to rescue an American citizen is ignored. They have better things to do. And you foolishly thought they were there for you, didn’t you? Do NOT count on it.
We lived in Iran and were told to turn over our passports to the Iranian government and we refused. If others did anything so foolish, I do not know, but there is no way I will give my passport up. I don’t even like sending it off to get a visa. US passports are very valuable abroad.
I don’t blame her at all for being swept away by this exotic and charming prince. This is 1959 when there was very little information about that part of the world. What is striking is how smooth he was in his deception.
Ms. Chesler story is one all western women should read and know about.
She is one of the lucky ones. She got out. I know four females that got involved with muslims of which one lost her daughter. The husband snatched the girl shortly after birth and took a flight to Iran. The other has four kids, she can leave Saudi Arabia, but will lose her children.
They all said the same thing…’but he is different, he is not like that’.
unfortunately they are all like that
Chesler’s story, like “Not Without My Daughter” and so many others, should be required reading (by parents, the schools sure as hell won’t do it) for all girls in this country before they turn 13. There are a lot of ways to get your life effed up by a goon from some kind of cult (speaking from experience here), but Islam is far and away the worst of the lot. The information available now is so overwhelming compared to what Chesler had access to in the 50s that there is no excuse for another Western female to have to go through this, and the suffering of those who do can be laid at the doors of the dhimmis who refuse to tell them the truth.
Meanwhile, look what the Marxist Muslim-in-Chief has just declared:
http://nationalreport.net/obama-declares-november-national-muslim-appreciation-month/
Let’s not sit on our hands, folks. Get out there and show yer “appreciation” of all the ragheads do for — and TO — the rest of us. Legally, of course. As protected by the First Amendment, and don’t let the scumbags forget it.
RRA, that is a HOAX – Muslim Appreciation Month. Please don’t feed it.
What happened: did National Report lie, or deliberately issue such a report as a satire?
Either way, Obama is capable of ANYTHING evil…
ADHD, National Report sounds like a reliable source but it is not. It looks like all satire. Check out the other headlines:
http://nationalreport.net/category/politics/
WOW!!!! Thank you so very much for your pointer!!!
I’ll NEVER trust that “source” again – it sounds just like MAD magazine: nice for laughs but nothing else. [Mind you, sometimes when some of those things come true, it’s really frightening…]
Gratefully yours.
ADHD, I nearly posted it myself because it is definitely within the realm of what that bastard is capable of doing.
Gut-wrenching. This women saw the hell of Moslem women. Must reading for every Western woman who is deceived by a Moslem Casa Nova…as Chessler was.
Chessler’s message: Cultures are not equal. Islam is ‘endemic indigenous barbarism’.
Prove her wrong.