3 / Marriage

FROM TIME TO TIME, I wrote poems and articles that were published in Al Risala and Al Thaqafa, Egyptian magazines, but after I was married, I stopped writing because I became busy with Ibrahim and the children, although I still write in my diary every day. Ibrahim used to sit with his friends in front of a shop close to our school, and he would see me when I passed every day on my way to and from school. While he was reading a magazine one day, he saw my name, and after he read my poem, he asked his friend if it was possible that the small girl, Madeeha Albatta, who was famous for her ironed uniform and white collar, and was the only girl who wore shoes, could write good poems and articles like this? His friend said that, yes, she writes in this magazine. He was surprised by the pessimism in my writing after he read my pieces called “The Autumn,” “A Bird and Other Birds,” and “A Withered Rose.”

In “A Withered Rose,” I wrote:

Oh, beautiful rose, the symbol of life and love.

Why are you so withered when life is still open for you?

You used to smile and give life, but now you are changed.

How can you give life to your thorns, then die?

So, after Ibrahim read the pieces that I had written, he sent me a letter without including his full name.

On January 15, 1948, my father brought me a number of letters. That morning, I prayed the dawn prayer and then slept again, and had a strange dream in which I saw myself standing in the square in front of the Khan Younis mosque, in front of the castle.1 A lion was walking in a circle looking at me while people watched and clapped their hands, and every time he completed the circle, he came closer to where I stood. When he looked at me, I stepped back, and then he circled again and repeated the same thing. Then suddenly he took me and flew into the sky and told me not to be afraid because there was nothing to be afraid of. Then I opened my eyes.

I got out of bed and put a pot of milk on the fire to boil while I thought deeply about the dream, and the milk boiled over and spilled without my realizing it. Then my father gave me the letters. As headmistress, I received many letters every day from the education department, and as I went through them, I saw one from Khan Younis and was sure it was from the parents of a girl who had been sent home the day before, and so it would be full of bad words. I thought about whether to drink the milk or read the letter, but I left it because if it contained bad words, I would lose my appetite. When I opened the letter, it was signed with Ibrahim’s initial and his family name of Abu Sitta. In his letter, he asked why I was pessimistic in my writing and wondered how a young woman at the beginning of her life would write like this, speaking about autumn and withered flowers and other sad subjects. Finally, he wrote that he hoped that I would remove the black glasses from my eyes forever.

The Abu Sitta family lived in the village of Al Ma’in, an area of 55,000 dunams (about 14,000 acres) situated east of Abasan, a village of Khan Younis and part of the Beersheba district. Before the 1948 war, the Abu Sitta children walked to school, which Sheikh Hussein Abu Sitta, Ibrahim’s father, built in 1920 at his own expense. The teachers at the school taught the first four years of education. After completing school there, the sons of Beersheba Sheikhs were sent to a boarding school in the town of Beersheba. Others went to the Khan Younis school and took lodging at the home of Al Haj Abdallah Al Aqqad from Saturday to Wednesday and returned home for the weekend on Wednesday afternoon.

Sheikh Hussein was a well-known figure who did not have a formal education, but had taught himself to read and write. Sitting at various kuttabs run by Muslim scholars, he expanded his knowledge through reading the Quran, newspapers, and books on various subjects. He inherited his position (as a Sheikh) from a long line of ancestors who were also Sheikhs. His great great grandfather, Sheikh Dahshan, was a paramount Sheikh among tribes in Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt. Sheikh Hussein first got married during World War I. He had five children: Harba, Mousa, Ali, Salman, and Nadia. Around 1919, Sheikh Hussein’s brother Mousa died and left behind a widow and two children, Abdallah and Salma. As was the custom, he married his brother’s widow, and she subsequently bore him two sons: Ibrahim and Suleiman. His sons were the first Palestinians to study at Egyptian universities: Ibrahim was the first Palestinian student in the faculty of law at Fu’ad University (later named Cairo University), Suleiman was the first in the faculty of medicine, Ali was the first in the engineering faculty, and Mousa was the first in agriculture. Many people told Sheikh Hussein to marry off Ibrahim when he finished school in Jerusalem because he was the oldest son. However, Sheikh Hussein said that Ibrahim could marry at any time, but the chance to study was only given once in a lifetime, and he was not going to allow Ibrahim to start his life until he had finished his studies and obtained his degree. After Ibrahim graduated in 1947, he trained at a lawyer’s office in Jerusalem, but during the 1948 war travel to Jerusalem was difficult, so he stayed in Khan Younis and planned to open a law office.

After I read the letter, I thought for two days before deciding to write back, and this was the beginning of the exchange of letters between us. Ibrahim’s youngest brother Salman and my brother Nadid were both in the sixth class, so Ibrahim gave Salman letters to send to me through Nadid and I sent him letters the same way. Then Salman went to Egypt to study, so we sent letters through the female porter of my school, who became the postman between us. When we exchanged letters, he said he wanted to see me, but I wrote that this couldn’t happen because I couldn’t abuse my father’s trust. If he wanted to see me, I wrote, he should first go to my father, so Ibrahim went to my father’s closest friend and asked him to speak to my father about our becoming engaged. When I knew that Ibrahim wanted to see my father, I wrote to him: “Don’t think I am tall with white skin and blonde hair. I am not like that at all.” In fact, I wanted him to know so he wouldn’t be shocked after our marriage, especially because I was very thin and only weighed forty-six kilograms.

He wrote back: “I know everything about you and I still remember your big, pure black eyes, full of intelligence and innocence. The only thing I wanted to know was your heart, and now after I know this, your image has become very clear to me and I feel I know you very well. Who told you I worship statues?”

A short time after this the subject was closed, because the Jewish militia attacked Al Ma’in and drove the entire Abu Sitta clan from their land after burning their houses. Ibrahim’s family then rented a house in Khan Younis, two houses away from us. On May 15, 1948, the British Mandate ended, and all the British offices and departments closed, and problems spread all over Palestine. Altogether, I wrote sixty letters to Ibrahim and he replied to all of them. I still have all the letters I received from him, and also the draft of the first letter I wrote, because I was unsure about whether or not to write and what to write. Ibrahim lost the first fifteen letters because they burned up with their house in Al Ma’in.

Madeeha Hafez Albatta in Gaza in 1955. The photo was taken in a studio in Gaza City. Photo courtesy of Madeeha’s family.

My father was very strict when I was engaged, because I had refused to marry one of my relatives and insisted on marrying Ibrahim. Perhaps he was strict because I didn’t have my mother to speak on my behalf, and I was the first daughter to be married. Even after the marriage contract was signed, my father refused to let us see each other or meet; he did not allow Ibrahim to give me a ring, but instead his sister-in-law, in accordance with my father’s instructions, put it on my finger. Until our wedding day, Ibrahim hadn’t seen my face at all or met me alone, and the only time he had ever seen me was when I walked to and from school. I used to cover my face with a long heavy veil in accordance with the social customs at that time; in fact, I kept my face covered the whole time my father was alive and even after I was married. Later, when we moved to Gaza, Ibrahim convinced me to replace it with a shorter one of lighter material, and all my sisters did the same thing when they saw me, and my father didn’t comment. But all of this changed with my sisters. All of their fiancés gave them rings and visited them, and they sat together and had dinner together. I only wanted Ibrahim, so I didn’t argue with my father about these details. I knew that, in the end, we would be together and then could sit and have dinner whenever we wanted. I was patient and didn’t care too much about not meeting him before our marriage.

I knew many people, among them women from Jaffa who were experienced in sewing, and when I became engaged, refugee girls and women from Jaffa helped me prepare the necessary new clothes for my marriage. At that time, Jaffa was a modern city, a hub of Palestinian culture and economy, and famous for sewing, embroidery, and its high standards of fashion compared to southern Palestine. These women and girls, whom I had gotten to know when I registered the refugees for the school, embroidered all my clothes, underwear, and other things needed by a new bride, as well as my white dress and the burnous to cover the dress. I still have the burnous and when my daughters became teenagers, they used to wear it secretly.

We were married on November 6, 1949. There were only two taxis in Khan Younis and they came from Jaffa, and my brother-in-law, Abdallah, apologized to my father about the lack of taxis to take my family to my husband’s family. But my father didn’t mind because the two houses were very close. My friends and sister-in-law and I went in one taxi and my stepmother, sisters, and brothers went in the other, while the rest of the family walked. When I was about to step inside my husband’s home, Abdallah shot into the air with his rifle to welcome me because he was so happy that his brother and I were finally together.

I loved Abdallah like my brothers because he was a great man and a great freedom fighter. He spent his life, from before 1936 until he was murdered in Jordan in 1970, carrying his rifle on his shoulder and struggling for freedom. A graduate of al-Rawda College in Jerusalem, Abdallah led the resistance against the British in the 1936–39 revolt on the southern front, as well as the resistance against the Zionists thereafter. In fact, Abdallah was among those wanted by the British, so he found refuge in Egypt at the end of the revolt when the British promised Palestinians they would restrict Jewish immigration into Palestine. He returned in the early 1940s, when the British Mandate authorities were preoccupied with the Second World War, and he continued his struggle for freedom. When Ibrahim was fourteen years old, he carried a rifle on his shoulder and waited for the trains with his rifle and hand grenades. Once Abdallah became very angry and even beat Ibrahim when he caught him sleeping with his rifle while waiting for the English, wondering how he could sleep in such a very dangerous place. After the 1947 partition plan, Abdallah’s activities intensified as Zionists started to attack Palestinians and burn their villages. He gathered men from his family, including Ibrahim who was a recent graduate, his old fighters, and other volunteers from Beersheba and Gaza, and led the fight to defend his land and the Beersheba district. He was a very brave man and great fighter.

When the Zionists occupied Ibrahim’s family land in Al Ma’in back in 1948, Abdallah and other fighters tried to defend it, but of course they couldn’t, having only light weapons to defend against the Zionist militia and their tanks and bombs. At that time, Zionists, with the knowledge and support of the British, had manufactured ammunition, rifles, and military cars, while Palestinians were not allowed to possess any sort of weapon. Abdallah was not in Al Ma’in then. He went to meet General Mawawi, the commander of the Egyptian forces who were preparing to enter Gaza. Ibrahim, his brother Mousa, and the other fighters and volunteers defended Al Ma’in with the means they had. They lost several men and by a miracle they managed to escape and save their lives when they realized that they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the Zionist militia.

I married Ibrahim when he was a lawyer, and later he became the city magistrate. He was paid five Egyptian pounds for every case, and sometimes more. This modest income was not only for us, but also for our extended family and poor people, but I managed to keep tight control over our spending. I wrote down what I bought in a notebook, and saved money piaster by piaster. Nobody knew how much I saved. When I would tell Ibrahim that I wanted to go for a holiday, he used to say that we didn’t have enough money, so I would lie and say I could borrow from my family and when we returned, we would repay it. Then I went to my family with the money in my pocket and returned with the same money, which I gave to Ibrahim, and then we travelled. Now I laugh when I read those notebooks and remember those days.

We lived in a small rented house in Khan Younis, and on August 12, 1950, I had my first child, a daughter. I named her Adala, meaning “justice,” and it was the first time this name was used in Gaza. I named her this because I liked it, because her father was the first lawyer and magistrate in Gaza, and also perhaps to bring justice for girls. As many know, our society, including the Bedouin, prefers boys, and Ibrahim’s family had wanted a boy. Even my father-in-law, whom I considered different from others, was the same, and I was a bit frustrated. It wasn’t enough that I became pregnant immediately and had my first child approximately nine months after marriage. I remembered that my mother had girls and only two boys, and her sister had girls, but no boys. All my sisters-in-law had boys, and my husband’s family were waiting for me to have one, so when I became pregnant with my second child, I prayed for a son.

I was expected to name my first son Hussein after his grandfather, but I didn’t like the name Hussein because it’s an old name and I wanted to give my son a modern name. But one night I had a dream about an old man who kissed my stomach and told me that I would have a male child, but I must promise to call my son by his name. I asked him his name and he told me a very strange name, which I said wasn’t nice and that the people of Khan Younis would laugh if I called my son this. So, he said to take some of the letters and call my son this name. It included all the letters of the name “Hussein,” so I agreed. When I opened my eyes and remembered the dream, I felt I would have a boy, and if I did, I would call him Hussein. I had a very easy and quick birth, just a few minutes and he was born.

I have a good memory for numbers, not only my children’s birth dates, but also my grandchildren’s. Since I was young, I have remembered dates and connected them to events. This first started on the day of the earthquake, then continued when my mother died, and then the years passed and the suffering increased with the occupation, and there have since been many, many stories drawn with dates and moments and details on my heart. Adala was born on August 12th; Hussein on October 2nd; Fawaz on March 3rd; Moeen on June 26th; Aida on October 16th; Nawaf on November 6th; Hamed on January 9th; Nasser on February 24th; and then Azza on March 3rd. We are very connected with the number nine, as many events that have occurred in our lives have been connected with this particular number. I have nine children, we moved to this house on September 9th, my son Fawaz travelled to Germany to study international law on September 9, 1971, and married on the 9th of September, and Azza graduated as a laboratory technician on September 9, 1981.

Later, we moved to another house, closer to my family home and much nicer and bigger than the first. It had many balconies, and from one of them we took a picture of my family home. The night we moved to that new home was when I became pregnant with Moeen, because I had him nine months after we moved.

Before Aida was a year old, she was teething and very sick the whole summer, and I thought we would lose her. I was so tired because of this, and also because at the same time, my brothers-in-law and their families came from Kuwait to spend the summer vacation with us. After this, I told Ibrahim that I wanted a break away from Khan Younis, but he said he had already used his holidays to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca and couldn’t take another. No matter what I did, I couldn’t help remembering the attack on Khan Younis in August 1955, when Israeli soldiers burned the police station, killed over seventy policemen, and wounded many others.2 When I looked from the eastern side of my home, I would imagine seeing the fire and the police station burning, and I thought if they had reached the police station, they could reach us. I became so afraid at night that I sometimes even took Ibrahim with me when I went to check the children. This feeling accompanied me for several months. I was so afraid of being in Khan Younis, and I told Ibrahim that if he didn’t take a holiday, he would find me one day jumping from the roof of the house. He asked what the matter with me was, and I said that I felt something in my heart, and was so worried and afraid and so tired that I wanted to leave. I think my worries transferred to him because he asked his boss for another holiday. He was a judge then. He was told that he had already taken his annual holiday, but Ibrahim said that he felt really tired and needed a break from his work. When his boss agreed and said he could start his holiday the next day, he couldn’t believe it, and when he told me the news, I jumped with happiness. It was October 4, 1956, and we left the next day. At that time, the train to Egypt came late in the afternoon, and I thought that in the one day I could pack the bags, iron and prepare our clothes, and do everything necessary. So, I quickly sent for Salma, a lady who used to work at our home, to come very early the next morning to help me make date jam, preserve the olives, and crush and preserve red chillies because the season would be finished when we returned.

Adala was in the first class at school, so we decided not to take her. Aida was so sick that we thought it better for her to stay in Khan Younis, where my family could take care of her. Moeen was not yet toilet trained, so we decided to leave him also. We took only Hussein and Fawaz. I asked Salma to take care of the rest of the children while we were in Egypt, and I took them all to my family home, along with a bag containing the children’s clothes as well as food and money. My father asked how I could leave my children and where I would leave them, and I answered at their grandfather’s home: his home. He said, “But your daughter Aida is very sick.” I told him that she would be better off staying in Khan Younis than traveling with us to Egypt, and that I was sure my family and Salma would take good care of them while we were away. He was unhappy with us travelling without our children, but we had already made the decision.

We took the train to Egypt, and as soon as I left the cultivated fields of Rafah and the surrounding areas and saw the desert, I became very thankful and relieved. We arrived in Cairo on the morning of October 6th, as children were going to school. My uneasy feeling was correct: at the beginning of November, Israeli soldiers attacked and occupied the Gaza Strip.