Arabic → English transcript

In the Druze faith, you… Druze do not marry non- Druze.

In the Druze faith, they do not marry non- Druze, and if you want my personal

story, I married

three women who were not Druze.

I broke all the rules,

but my mother— we go back here to some particular traits, yes— my mother

said to me,“ Okay, what will you do?” I said,“ What will I do?” She wanted the

family to continue,

and at that time I was single, meaning

she set things up for a marriage,

if we can call it a traditional one.

Was your second marriage also to a Circassian?

And not to a Druze. My first marriage was to an Iranian. Was she a Shia Iranian?

No, she was Christian. A Christian Iranian, yes. And your second marriage?

A Sunni Circassian.

And my third marriage

was to Noura, a Syrian from Damascus,

a Sunni, yes, yes.

So you basically broke all the rules, and the shuyukh al- aql did not object to you?

They objected, they objected to the second marriage, they objected.

Sheikh Muhammad objected,

he did not come to congratulate me,

the sheikhs did not come to congratulate me, only one sheikh came,

Sheikh Yusuf Saleh Abdel Khaleq, may God have mercy on him. And afterward,

due to political circumstances, everyone came.