Writing a book. When i started the movement, i gave a speech. I was invited to give a speech. People cried to that speech. People gave me two standing ovations. This never happened in the history of that conference. When i came down the stage, this lady came to me and she said, when are we going to read your story . And i thought, who would ever be interested in reading about my insignificant life . But that really sparked the idea of writing this book. Lamb when was that . Alsharif i gave the speech in 2012 and that is when i started writing it. Lamb where did you give the speech and why . Alsharif it was also a Freedom Forum and it was hosted by human rights foundation. It is based in new york and they invite activists from all around the world to tell their stories of standing against tyrants and standing and fighting for human rights. That was in oslo. Lamb lets start from the beginning. Where were you born . Alsharif i am born in mecca in the year of trouble, i call it, which is 1979. Lamb your parents. What are they like . Where were they born . Alsharif yes, mom she is from libya. Thats north africa. She met dad because of faith. She came for hajj and she met my father in mecca. They fell in love. They got married. My father is from mecca. Lamb and what is hajj . Alsharif hajj is a so once in a lifetime, for the muslim who is able, he is required to perform hajj, which is visiting the holy site of mecca and performing certain rituals and that will make your faith complete. Lamb picture on our screen right now of what . Of what . What is that . Alsharif that is my hometown, mecca. This is the holy kaaba. One of the rituals we perform, tawaf, seven circles around this holy kaaba. I miss mecca. Lamb and who can go there and why do they go there and how important is it . Alsharif so the kaaba or mecca is for muslims only. So nonmuslims are not allowed to visit the mecca or medina the two holiest cities for the muslims. And so only muslims go there. We go either to perform hajj once in a lifetime or you can go for a visit which is called umrah. Umrah is a small version of hajj that you can do any time of the year and it literally means visit to visit the holy site of mecca. Lamb do you have any idea how many people have died there at the hajj or in mecca around this kaaba. Alsharif died . For what . Died from what . Lamb stampedes. Over the years, we have read about them. Alsharif yes. Lamb where there are so many people there that you might have thousands of people die . Alsharif it didnt happen many times really. It happened few times for some reasons that they explained why. The last not the last hajj i cant remember the last one in which it happened, which over a thousand died, but it is not really often. Security there is very strict and they always have these hundreds of thousands of people organizing the hajj for the muslim to make it smooth. I did hajj myself as a muslim, as a devout muslim, you have to do it once in your lifetime and it was very small. So accidents happen in big gatherings, when you talk about a million of muslims in a very small city, the size of mecca between mountains. It is a valley between mountains. Accidents does happen, yes. Lamb what do muslims get out of going there . Whats the purpose . Alsharif so in islam, you have five pillars of islam and to be full muslims, you have to fulfill these five pillars. The fifth pillar in islam the first pillar for example is to believe in god. There is no god but allah and the prophet is his and mohammed is his prophet, peace be upon him, and the last pillar of islam is performing hajj. This is why muslims go to mecca to have the full faith to become full muslims i would say. Lamb how long do you spend there . Alsharif for hajj so for hajj, it depends on how long you want to spend there, but for the hajj days itself, you dont have to be there more than a week, but people like to spend more time in mecca. Lamb who pays for it . Alsharif you pay for it. Everyone pays for himself and we believe that if you pray so when we pray, god accepts our prayers, but in mecca, each prayer you make is worth 100,000 so this is why it is very important for the muslims to go there. It is like you can pray one year and if you go to mecca, you stay there one week, the deeds you get from mecca being in mecca, praying in mecca its worth years of your lifetime. Lamb in your book and the one thing and i read your book, i am not sure, maybe i missed it, but what would you say your muslim faith is today . Alsharif me . Lamb yes. Alsharif i am muslim. Lamb do you believe . Alsharif yes, of course i believe in god. I pray for prophet mohammed. I am just against radical islam. I am against the orthodox islam that is being taught to us in schools growing up. Lamb one of the things that is in your book, every time the prophet is mentioned. Alsharif yes. Lamb are the initials pbuh and if you just said it, why do you do that every time you talk about prophet mohammed . Alsharif its a sign of respect to prophet mohammed that when you mention his name and it is not only for prophet mohammed by the way, so if i mention the name of any prophet, adam, abraham, moses, jesus, we have to mention, peace be upon him. It is asking blessings from god to them for giving us for leading human kind to the faith, to god, to the truth. Lamb what is the most important thing to you about being a muslim . Alsharif a lot of things but i think the peace that you get being a muslim, the peace that you get believing in god and it is interesting that people have this misconception about islam that it is the ideology faith that we see today and the violence, it is not islam. Islam means submission to god and the the olive the ideology of hate that we see today and the violence, it is not islam. Islam means submission to god and the first thing when you meet a muslim, they say, peace be upon you. So it is peaceful. It calls for morals. It calls for good deeds. It calls for a lot of good things in any society that they want to have there. What we lost from islam is the preaching and the scholars, they are emphasizing on trivial things that made us lose the essence of islam which is being in peace with yourself, being in peace with the other, accepting mercy. We lost that, i dont know, somewhere in the when it became political. When it was used as a political weapon. Lamb when did that start . Alsharif oh throughout history, religion has always been used whether islam, whether any other religion being used as a political weapon. In europe, the inquisitions and the muslim war when you use one faith against the other and you call them infidel. Any ideology actually use to gain power that is when it becomes dangerous. Lamb where do you live now . Alsharif so i used to live in saudi. I moved to dubai and live five years few like only two months, we moved to sydney, australia. Lamb and that is where you live now . Alsharif yes, thats where i live now. Lamb are you married . Alsharif i am married with my second husband who is from brazil and we have a boy. Lamb and that is where you live now . Lamb and your first marriage ended in divorce and how old is your the young man that you had . The boy . Alsharif abdullah, my first son. Abdullah is right now, he is 11 and my second boy, he will turn three next month. Lamb why did you pick australia . Alsharif long story short, my husband is working there now, but he didnt want to go back to brazil because it is violent and he wanted to go to a country where he can have a better life for our kids, for daniel. Lamb you tell us in your book a lot about your divorce. Alsharif yes, okay. Lamb why . Alsharif not a lot did i talk a lot in the book about the divorce . Lamb enough. Alsharif i just talk about it because it was so difficult for a woman to get divorced because she is not supposed to. I didnt get support from the family. They were against it. Although i explained it, it is an abusive relationship and the saudi courts is not a friendly place to women, really, its frowned at from the society, from the court, from the legal system for a woman to get divorce. Its really difficult. But for me, when i got divorced, it was kind of liberating when i left my exhusband. Lamb you talked about how you met your husband in the first place and another relationship you were interested in that didnt develop. Give us that and when did that all happen . Alsharif you mean, my first husband relationship . Lamb no, a man you were interested in before you met your husband. I mean, you talk about your personal life and all that, but what year did all that happen . Alsharif actually, my first husband was first love. I wasnt interested in any man before. I had crushes on men lamb yes, thats what i mean. Alsharif yes, so i grew up in a society where men and women are isolated. My own cousins, i cannot see them. When i got my period, once i reached when the girl reaches puberty, she is not allowed to see men, so the only man i see is my father and my brother. The first time, i see a man or i interact with a man who was different than my father and my brother was when i got my first summer job. I was 23 and i remember 22, actually and i remember it was interesting to see to find that i can work with all these men and talk to them for the first time in my life after reaching puberty. I dont know if i am pronouncing it right. I got so many crushes actually, but it would last for a week and leave and it made sense later on for me because i was not allowed to be introduced to the men world, how they talk, how they what they think of, even just talk to them. You create this, i would say bizarre situations that leads to bizarre feelings. Lamb so what are the rules and where do the rules come from on how a woman lives in saudi arabia . Alsharif so the first rule for a woman is her best place is her home, not her job, not education, not the mosque, not outside its her home. So it is highly encouraged for us to stay home and if i ever i want to leave the house, it should be for urgency, it should be for something, really, really important and i have to take the mans permission to leave the house my husband, my father. Also the segregation between the sexes and you find it in all everywhere. If you go to a restaurant, if you go to a bank, if you go to Government Office there is always the men and women are segregated. The schools and the university when i went to the university, i have never seen my teachers. All of them were most of them actually were men. I have never talked to them. I see them through closed circuit tv, cctv. This is how i used to see my teachers. We were not even allowed to talk to them. We had a teacher in the class, she was called in if we had a question and she asked this question on our behalf. So its this is how we grew up. Also, the list of things you cannot do just being a woman was really huge. You cannot dress anything in public, but you have to put on the abaya. It was expected in my city because it was a very conservative city, mecca to cover my face, not to talk to men. It wasnt encouraged to use our first names, so at the end of the school, when they would call my name if my father is outside, i am not allowed to be standing outside. They have to call me through the mic, the guard, the security guard. He calls for the mic or the gatekeeper. He calls my fathers name. He doesnt call my name and the list goes on and on to lamb let me just interrupt just trying to show a picture. We have two still photographs i want to show you and have you explain it. This is the first one. Alsharif yes, this is us in saudi arabia, but actually, they are showing their hands, they are showing their feet. Things are different now. We were fully covered and we had to put on the abaya in mecca at least, in my city. This is very conservative. Lamb what is the difference between what we are looking at there and the abaya . Alsharif yes, so this is the millennia. This is new generation. They dont accept to cover their face and now, they are wearing colorful abayas which was something that was frowned at. You can never wear when i worked in aramco in the eastern province, i insisted on wearing colorful scarves and i was totally different than everyone else, but now, more and more girls even wear the colorful abaya and i hope things loosen up. They are pushing the roles to be able to choose the clothes they want. The decent or the modest clothes they want as a muslim, but it should be an abaya. It shouldnt be black. Lamb how much of what saudi arabia requires of women is because the prophet laid down these laws years ago . Alsharif how much from lamb is it from the prophet is this created by the kingdom right now their own rules . Alsharif okay, there are rules from prophet mohammed for sure, but it is all about the interpretation of these texts that comes from prophet mohammed, so there are as i expand for example, the five pillars of islam that we follow, but there are rules that are imposed that are not meeting the 2017 the 21st century. One of them i will just give you one example. At the time of prophet mohammed, they expect the woman when she travels, she has a man companion. Makes sense because it was very dangerous when you travel. There will be thieves, there will be killers. There are deserts and you are using caravans and camels, it takes days. Now, we dont need that. I dont need a guy to travel with me to protect me. He is not going to carry a gun and protect me. So the rules when they are taken from textbooks that is 1,000 or 1,400 years ago, it should be reinterpreted to meet the current situation. Thats the problem we face with the scholars in islam, when they say, you cannot interpret it any way, but it should be done exactly the same way it was done in prophet mohammeds time. For example, cutting hands. You cannot tell me now, you have correctional facilities and we still cut hands. And this is this debate has been going on with the scholars. I am not a scholar, but it terrifies me when they still insist that we cut hands. Lamb have you ever known anybody who had their hands cut off . Alsharif the who . Lamb their hands cut off . Alsharif i have known someone . Lamb have you known somebody . Alsharif no, i havent known, but it was carried out in saudi arabia. I havent heard about it recently, but it has been carried out in saudi arabia. Lamb what if you announced yourself or they find out you are a homosexual, what happens . Alsharif oh you get killed in saudi arabia. Lamb killed . Alsharif yes, you cannot announce that you are a homosexual in saudi arabia. Religion is very i try to stay away from religion because i am in peace with every single different faith and belief and sexual orientation, but mention these things in my country, it is frowned at. You cannot discuss homosexuality in my county for example. Country for example. Its something that is a taboo that we cannot talk about in saudi arabia, so i keep these beliefs to myself and i try to push the things without offending the believers, i would say, the things that i believe should change in my country and has no base in islam that you are pushing it on us. Lamb would you explain and you mentioned this about your mother and father and your sister and teachers and others that beat you as you were growing up . When you say beat you and your exhusband, what does that mean . What did they when somebody define beating . Alsharif so growing up, my generation was expected to discipline your kids with a stick, we call it a bamboo stick or kayzuran. It was expected in the school that if you dont behave, you also are disciplined with a wooden ruler, so we were brought up this way. So mom and dad would discipline in the house if they think we misbehaved and the same thing happens in the school. One boy was killed because his teacher beat him badly and then they had to ban the beating in school, but the beating in the houses, it was not criminalized until recently. There was antidomestic violence law that was passed recently. It is not enforced yet, but it is a good start to stop this, i would say, culture of that you can discipline someone by beating them, the physical abuse, i would call it. Lamb who beat you the most in your lifetime . Alsharif my sister. She beat me the most. Thats interesting lamb who beat you where was the most severe beating and i mean, i am kind of leading up to whether or not that was your exhusband you refer during this alsharif i had my share of beating growing up in saudi arabia and that ended actually my marriage that time when i left my it was because of the physical abuse, not only the emotional abuse. Lamb how would what would his physical abuse be like . Alsharif physical abuse with the hands. Lamb with the hands. Alsharif yes, punching and lamb did you have any place to go when your exhusband was punching you and all of that alsharif in saudi arabia, if a woman go to the police and she reports the man, they would summon him. They would ask him to sign. They would not put him in jail, even if she has a medical report. They would summon him and he had to sign a pledge promising not to beat hear again. The problem is that she gets sent to the same abusers house and this is the case of Miriam Letabe , she is a girl who is 29 years old. She was beaten. She complained against her brother who was younger than her. Her father complains and gets her to drop the charges and she was sent to jail and not her brother. The social media went into a frenzy. They let the girl out. Six months later, she is living in an abusive house. She finds a job. She leaves the house. They put her back in jail for the crime of being absent from her abusers house. So thats a problem that we dont have even if there are shelters for women in saudi arabia. It is poorly, poorly, poorly managed because they treat those abused women victims as criminals. They lock them in those houses. And for a woman to leave the shelter, she leaves the guardian who is her abuser to sign the papers, so she leaves the shelter or jail lets say. There is also the story of Dina Ali Lasloom who have run away from her abusing abusive family. They caught her in manila. She was on the way to australia for asylum. They caught her in manila and they sent her back handcuffed, ducktape in her mouth and she is jail. She is in a correctional facility for women in rafaeli . This will happen to the abused women in my country. Lamb i want to play for you an interview that i did here in 2006 with Turki Al Faisal who at the time was the ambassador from saudi arabia to the United States and we talked about women in the saudi societies. It is not very long, about 40 seconds. video starts . Al faisal the most prized woman today in saudi arabia is a woman with a job. She is encouraged by her parents to go and find a job because she brings in income and they dont have to spend money on her. Her siblings look up to her and want to do like her and equally importantly, she is sought after by suitors and i think this is what is going to happen to women driving, to people going to common events together because social changes is what will drive these factors. video ends lamb so what do you think of what he said . That was 11 years ago. Alsharif wow. Is it . Lamb where were you 11 years ago . Alsharif i was working in aramco. Lamb aramco. Alsharif yes. Lamb so what do you think of what alsharif i agree that social change is the one that will lead change in saudi arabia that i always and this is the beautiful thing about saudi arabia by the way. Th