Growing Up Bin Laden

IN THEIR OWN WORDS, Osama bin Laden’s wife and son tell the astonishing story of the man they knew—or thought they knew—before September 11, 2001.

The world knows Osama bin Laden as the most wanted terrorist of our time. But people are not born terrorists, and bin Laden has carefully guarded the details of his private life—until now, when his first wife and fourth-born son break the silence to take us inside his strange and secret world. In spine-tingling detail, Jean Sasson tells their story of life with a man whose growing commitment to violent jihad led him to move his wives and children from an orderly life to one of extreme danger, even choosing the teenage Omar to accompany him to the mountain fortress of Tora Bora.

"Fascinating.... Together, Najwa and Omar provide an intimate account of a family life that became steadily more dangerous and bizarre.... From affluence and comfort in Jeddah they were reduced to penury and privation in Afghanistan, all the wives and their many children living without electricity, running water, or even real beds, in forced pursuit of Osama’s jihadist dreams." –THE WASHINGTON POST

Najwa bin Laden is Osama bin Laden’s first wife and mother to eleven of his children. Omar bin Laden is Osama bin Laden’s fourth-born son. Neither has been in contact with Osama bin Laden since leaving Afghanistan before September 11, 2001. The New York Times bestselling author Jean Sasson has lived and traveled extensively in the Middle East for the last thirty years and currently lives in Atlanta.