Before I leave, I want to use this opportunity to tell you about Jesus Christ.

He was killed and hung on the cross.

He died for you and me.

That was me 6 months ago at a charity gala.

I was there as a pageant contestant, but I was also there as a witness.

If you had told me three years before that moment that I would stand in front of hundreds of people and say those words, I would have laughed.

Or maybe I would have been terrified because 3 years before that I I was still in Saudi Arabia and just thinking those words could have gotten me killed.

Let me take you back to the beginning to Riyad that to the house where I grew up to the girl I used to be.

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Before our sister continues her story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

I was born into a cage, but I didn’t know it was a cage at first.

When you’re a child, you think the world you know is the only world that exists.

My world was our house in Riyad.

A big house with high walls and a courtyard that no one from outside could see into.

My world was my mother in her abaya.

Uh my father in his th brothers who could do things I couldn’t do.

I was the only girl, the youngest child.

My mother told me once that when I was born, some of the women who came to visit her said things like, “Maybe next time,” or, “At least you have three sons already.

” Even my birth was a disappointment.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t understand that being a girl meant being less.

You learn it before you can even read.

You learn it in the way people speak to you versus how they speak to your brothers.

You learn it in the things you’re not allowed to do.

You learn it in the way your father looks at you or doesn’t look at you.

My brothers could play outside.

I had to stay in the courtyard.

My brothers could go to the market with my father.

I had to stay home.

My brothers could laugh loudly, run, shout, climb trees.

A park.

I was pulled aside when I was seven years old because I laughed too loud at something funny my youngest brother said.

My mother’s hand was gentle on my arm.

But her voice was firm.

Girls don’t laugh like that.

It’s not proper.

I remember thinking, why? Why can’t I laugh? What’s wrong with laughing? But I learned not to ask why.

Asking why only brought trouble.

When I was eight, my father brought home new abayas for me, black, heavy, serious.

I had been wearing colorful dresses in the house and a simple covering when we went out.

But now it was time for the full abaya.

I remember my mother helping me put it on for the first time.

The fabric felt like it was swallowing me.

I couldn’t see my feet.

I felt like I was disappearing.

You’re growing up, my mother said.

She sounded sad but also resigned like this was just what happened.

Like there was no other way.

I wore that abaya every single day for the next 10 years.

School was different for me than it was for my brothers.

They went to schools where they learned English, where they had computers, where teachers encouraged them to ask questions and think for themselves.

My school was all girls all the time.

We learned to read and write Arabic.

We learned math and somei science but mostly we learned religion.

Every day started with Quran recitation.

We had Islamic studies classes where we learned the rules.

So many rules.

Rules about how to pray, how to wash, how to dress, how to speak, how to behave.

rules about what happened if you broke the rules, the punishments, the hell that was waiting for us if we weren’t careful.

I tried to be good.

I really did.

I memorized the suras.

I prayed five times a day.

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Uh I fasted during Ramadan even when I was so hungry I thought I would pass out.

I covered myself properly.

I lowered my gaze.

I was quiet and obedient and everything a good Muslim girl was supposed to be.

But I had questions.

So many questions.

Why did my testimony in court only count as half of a man’s testimony? Why did my brother inherit twice what I would inherit? Why couldn’t I travel without a male guardian? Why couldn’t I drive? Why couldn’t I choose who I married? Why did I have to cover every inch of my body while my brothers wore whatever they wanted? The one time I asked these questions in class, the teacher looked at me like I had just spit on the Quran.

These are Allah’s laws.

You don’t question Allah’s laws.

Questioning is a sign of weak faith.

I never asked again, but the questions didn’t go away.

They just lived inside me, growing bigger and heavier with every year that passed.

When I was 12, I found a magazine.

One of my brothers had gotten it somewhere.

a western fashion magazine with pictures of models and actresses.

Beautiful women with long hair flowing free, wearing dresses and jeans and showing their faces, their arms, their legs, smiling, looking confident, looking free.

I hid that magazine under my mattress.

At night after everyone was asleep, I would take it out and look at it by the light of my phone.

I would study those was I believed those women’s faces, the way they stood, the way they looked directly at the camera unafraid.

I wanted to be like them.

I wanted to be beautiful like that.

I wanted to be seen like that.

I started dreaming about being a model, about wearing beautiful clothes and having my picture taken and being celebrated for being beautiful instead of being told to hide myself.

I would practice poses in the mirror when I was alone in my room.

I would imagine walking down a runway, everyone watching me, everyone thinking I was sunning.

It was a stupid dream.

I knew it was stupid, but it was my dream.

And it was the only thing that made me feel like maybe, just maybe, there was more to life than what I was living.

When I was 16, my father told me I was engaged.

I wasn’t asked.

I was told.

The man was 34.

I had met him exactly once at a family gathering where he spoke to my father and my brothers while I sat silently with the women.

I remembered he had a beard and wore expensive clothes and barely looked at me.

Now he was going to be my husband.

He’s from a good family.

My father said he has money.

You’ll be well provided for.

I sat there on the floor of our living room, my mother beside me, my brothers somewhere else in the house, and I felt something crack inside my chest.

This was it.

This was my life.

This was all my life would ever be.

I was going to marry a man I didn’t know and didn’t love.

I was going to have his children.

I was going to cook and clean and serve and obey.

I was going to disappear into his house just like I had disappeared into the abaya when I was eight years old and there was nothing I could do about it.

My mother hugged me after my father left the room.

She whispered that everything would be okay.

That marriage was what happened to all women.

That I would learn to be content.

Content.

Not happy.

Content.

I cried that night.

But I cried quietly into my pillow so no one would hear.

I cried for the little girl who wanted to laugh loudly.

I cried for the teenager who wanted to be a model.

I cried for the future I would never have.

But I didn’t cry for long because somewhere in the middle of that grief, a new feeling started to grow.

It was small at first, just a tiny spark, but it was there.

Anger.

The engagement didn’t happen right away.

The man wanted to finish building his new house first.

So I had time, maybe a year, my father said.

Maybe two.

I started paying attention to the world outside Saudi Arabia.

I had a phone.

All of us did by then.

And I had access to the internet even though my father monitored it.

I learned to clear my history.

I learned to use apps that disappeared after you closed them.

I learned to be secret because I followed western fashion accounts on Instagram.

I watched YouTube videos of models and pageantss and fashion shows.

I saw women living lives that seemed impossible, going to university, choosing their careers, wearing what they wanted, marrying who they loved, or not marrying at all.

I saw women who looked like me, Arab women, Muslim women who had left and were living in the West.

Some of them still covered, some of them didn’t, but all of them seemed to have something I didn’t have.

Choice.

I started researching universities in the UK.

I don’t even know why I chose the UK.

Maybe because I had learned British English in school.

Maybe because London seemed far enough away.

Maybe because I saw pictures of London and it looked like another planet compared to Riad.

I applied to three universities.

I used my school email.

So now I wrote essays about wanting to study business, about wanting to build bridges between east and west, about wanting to represent my country well.

I said all the right things.

I didn’t say what I really wanted, which was to run as far and as fast as I could and never come back.

Two universities rejected me.

One accepted me.

When I got the acceptance email, I sat in my room staring at my phone screen for probably 20 minutes.

My hands were shaking.

This was real.

This was a door.

It was a tiny door.

and maybe it would slam shut, but it was there.

Now I just had to figure out how to walk through it.

Convincing my father was the hardest thing I had ever done up to that point in my life.

I planned it carefully.

I waited until he was in a good mood.

I made sure my brothers were there, too, because I thought maybe they would support me.

I I dressed modestly.

I spoke respectfully.

I kept my eyes down.

I told him about the acceptance.

I told him it was a good university.

I told him I would stay with his cousins who lived in London, a conservative man with a wife and daughters who all covered properly.

I told him I would video call every single day.

I told him I would come back after one year and get married like he wanted.

I lied.

I lied about almost everything, but especially about coming back.

My father said, “No, immediately girls don’t go abroad to study.

Girls study here, if they study at all, and then they get married.

That’s the way it’s always been.

” But my oldest brother surprised me.

He said it might be good for the family to have someone with a British education.

He said it would make me a better wife, more sophisticated.

He said one year wasn’t that long.

I I don’t know why he helped me.

Maybe he felt sorry for me.

Maybe he was more progressive than I thought.

Maybe he had his own reasons, but he convinced my father.

It took weeks of conversations, but eventually my father agreed.

The conditions were strict.

I would live with his cousin.

I would cover properly.

I would not socialize with men.

I would video call home every single day at the same time.

I would come back in one year to get married.

If I broke any of these rules, I would be brought back immediately.

I agreed to everything.

I would have agreed to anything.

Packing my bags was surreal.

I could only take two suitcases up, one with clothes, one with books and personal items.

Everything I owned had to fit into two suitcases.

I packed my abayas, my hijabs, my prayer mat, my Quran, things I knew my father would check for.

What? But I also packed hidden at the bottom of my suitcase under my clothes that old-fashioned magazine folded and worn and completely inappropriate.

I don’t know why I packed it.

Maybe as a reminder of the dream I had.

Maybe as a promise to myself that I would find a way to live it.

My mother cried when it was time to say goodbye.

She held me for a long time at the airport.

My father and brothers were standing nearby watching, but she didn’t care.

She held me and cried into my shoulder.

Her last words to me were in Arabic, whispered so only I could hear.

Be careful, Habibi.

The world outside is dangerous for girls like us.

I nodded.

I hugged her back.

I didn’t tell her that I was more afraid of staying than I was of leaving.

The flight to London was nine hours.

9 hours sitting next to my oldest brother who had been assigned to escort me.

9 hours of feeling every minute take me further from the life I knew and closer to something I couldn’t even imagine.

I kept my hijab on, my abaya wrapped tight, my eyes mostly down, playing the part, being the good girl.

But inside I was screaming.

Inside I was already running.

When the plane landed and we walked through Heathrow airport, I saw women everywhere.

Women in jeans, women in dresses, women with their hair uncovered flowing down their backs dyed different colors.

Women laughing loudly.

Women walking alone.

Women holding hands with men who weren’t their brothers or fathers or husbands.

I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t help it.

This was freedom.

This was what it looked like.

My father’s cousin met us at the airport.

Duck.

He was a serious man with a long beard and a stern face.

His wife was with them covered completely in black nicob.

Their three daughters, all teenagers, wore hijab and modest clothes.

They looked at me with curiosity and something else.

Maybe pity, maybe recognition.

My brother stayed for two days, making sure I was settled in, making sure the living arrangements were appropriate.

Then he flew back to Riyad and I was alone in London.

Not free, not yet, but alone.

And that was the first step.

The house I lived in was in East London in an area where many Arabs and Muslims lived.

It felt almost like being back in Riyad, except the buildings looked different, and the weather was cold and gray instead of hot and bright.

My father’s cousin was strict, maybe stricter than my own father.

Uh, his rules were clear.

No going out without his wife or daughters accompanying me.

No talking to men.

No western clothes.

Hijab at all times.

Even in the house when he was home, university and back.

That was it.

I followed the rules.

For the first few weeks, I followed every single rule.

I started classes, business administration.

The university was big and diverse.

But there were students from everywhere.

India, China, Nigeria, other Arab countries, British students of all backgrounds.

In my classes, I saw women wearing whatever they wanted, jeans and t-shirts, skirts, dresses.

Some wore hijab, but modern hijab with makeup and fashionable clothes.

Some were Arab or South Asian, and wore nothing on their heads at all.

I sat in the back of every class.

I took notes.

I didn’t speak unless called on.

I kept my head down, but I watched u I watched everything.

I watch the way female students raised their hands and argued with professors.

I watched the way they laughed with male students, casual and easy.

I watched the way they walked across campus with confidence, like they had every right to be there, like no one was going to tell them they couldn’t.

I watched and something inside me started to wake up.

Her name was Aisha.

British Pakistani, 20 years old, same as me.

She wore hijab, but it was colorful and styled fashionably.

She wore jeans.

She wore makeup.

She smiled at everyone.

She sat next to me in our marketing class one day about a month into the term.

She said hello.

I said hello back quietly.

She asked where I was from.

I told her Saudi Arabia.

Her eyes lit up.

Oh, I’ve always wanted to visit.

Is it beautiful there? I didn’t know how to answer that.

Why was it beautiful? The desert was beautiful.

The architecture was beautiful.

But was the life beautiful? It’s different.

I said finally.

She didn’t push.

She just smiled and started talking about the lecture, about the professor, about how hard the course was.

Easy conversation, normal conversation.

After class, she asked if I wanted to get coffee.

My father’s cousin’s rules rang in my head.

No socializing.

Straight to university and back.

But I was so lonely, so desperately lonely.

And she seemed kind.

I said yes.

We went to a cafe near campus.

I had never been to a cafe before.

Never sat in a public place with a friend ordering coffee just talking.

It felt strange and wonderful and terrifying all at once.

Aisha talked easily.

She told me about her family, about growing up in London, about her major, about her plans after university.

And she asked about me.

But when I gave short answers, she didn’t push.

She just kept talking, filling the space, making it comfortable.

When we left, she said, “We should do this again.

” I agreed, even though I knew I probably shouldn’t, but I went back again and again.

Coffee after class became our routine, and slowly, carefully, I started to talk.

Three months into my time in London, I took off my hijab, not at home, not anywhere near my father’s cousin’s house, but in a neighborhood across the city where no one knew me.

Aisha had invited me to go shopping with her in central London.

I lied to my father’s cousin’s wife, told her I was going to the library to study.

Then I met Aisha at the tube station.

We were walking through Oxford street surrounded by thousands of people and I saw my reflection in a store window.

Black abaya a black hijab invisible.

Everyone else was wearing colors jeans dresses.

Their hair was showing.

They looked like people.

I looked like a shadow.

Something snapped.

Can we go in there? I pointed to a clothing store, a normal store like H&M or Zara, the kind of store I had never been allowed to enter.

Aisha looked surprised but said yes.

Inside I found a simple long-sleeved shirt, navy blue, and a pair of jeans.

That’s all.

Nothing revealing, nothing crazy, just normal clothes.

Can I try these on? I asked Aisha.

She looked at me carefully.

I think she understood this was bigger than just trying on clothes.

Of course, she said in the fitting room, I took off my abaya.

I took off my hijab.

I put on the jeans and the shirt.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

I looked like a person, a normal person.

Who? A woman with a face and hair and a shape.

I could see myself.

I started crying right there in the fitting room, tears running down my face, but I was smiling too.

I don’t know if I was sad or happy.

Maybe both.

I bought the clothes.

I wore them out of the store, my abaya and hijab stuffed in the shopping bag.

Walking down Oxford Street with my hair uncovered, wearing jeans, I felt naked, exposed.

Every person who looked in my direction made me want to hide.

I kept waiting for someone to shout at me, to tell me, to cover up, to hurt me.

But no one cared.

No one even noticed.

I was just another woman walking down the street.

I felt terrified.

I felt guilty.

I felt like God was watching me and shaking his head in disappointment.

But I also felt alive.

The double life started after that at my father’s cousin’s house.

Uh I was the good Saudi girl.

Hijab on abaya on quiet and obedient.

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