Osama bin Laden is one of at least 54 sons and daughters of Mohammed bin Laden, the patriarch of the Bin Laden family.
Mohammed bin Laden was born in 1908 in the village of Rubat in the Hadramaut province of Yemen. At some point before adolescence, Mohammed's father Awadh died.[1] As a youth, Mohammed worked as a dockside laborer in Hadramaut, loading ships in the ports.[2] Following advice of his mother and townspeople, Mohammed emigrated from Yemen to Ethiopia, but he suffered an eye injury while working there and then returned to Yemen. In 1925, he immigrated to Saudi Arabia with his brother Abdullah, traveling up the Red Sea to Jeddah. In Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden started out working various jobs, and then he set up a small grill stand in Jeddah. Mohammed saw opportunity in the building trades, and began looking for jobs in that industry.[1]
In 1931, he established his own construction business. Mohammed began finding success when he landed a contract job for one of Jeddah's wealthy businessman. Mohammed and his brother were able to move into a small house in Jeddah. When the Great Depression set in, business slowed and the work available in Jeddah was insufficient. Mohammed traveled from Jeddah, to the east where oil was beginning to transform Saudi Arabia.[1] Mohammed took a job with the newly formed Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company) in Dhahran as a bricklayer.[3] Bin Laden was promoted within weeks to be a foreman, and then a few months later, he was promoted as a supervisor of several crews. By 1935, Mohammed Bin Laden was working as an independent contractor.[4]
Bin Laden came to Riyadh, where there was opportunity to do work for the royal family. King Abdulaziz was interested in expanding Riyadh beyond the city walls, and among things he wanted, the King wanted a new family palace complex where he could hold majlis sessions, as well as new homes for his sons. American contractors (e.g. Bechtel) were busy working on the new oil infrastructure, so Mohammed saw this as an opportunity for his firm. He started building homes for members of the royal family. He also built the first palace in Riyadh which was constructed entirely with stone. Bin Laden then landed more contracts in the Murabba Quarter of Riyadh. After World War II, oil exports from Saudi Arabia rose dramatically, and the King was doing very well. The King wanted to build more, including a new royal palace called Al-Khozam, located in Jeddah.[4]
With newfound wealth, Mohammed Bin Laden and his brother moved into a large complex in Jeddah, from which Mohammed managed affairs. Mohammad remained hands-on, visiting construction sites, but with the volume of projects, Mohammed increasingly focused on management. When in his late 30s, Mohammed Bin Laden married for the first time, and together they had a daughter (Aysha) in 1943. Bin Laden took a second wife, Fatimah Ahmed Mohsen Bahareth, and they had a son named Salem.[4]
Over time, Mohammed bin Laden became wealthy as he forged close relationships with the royal family, including not only King Abdulaziz, but also with Abdullah Suleiman, who was in charge of finances. Bin Laden stepped in to work on a project, building a road from Jeddah to Medina, which other western contractors failed to do satisfactorily. In 1953, King Abdulaziz fell ill and died. King Saud took over the throne, and Prince Faisal was installed as prime minister in 1957. In 1953, Bin Laden decided to reorganize the company and put the finances in order. In 1957, Mohammed's brother Abdullah decided to return to Yemen, satisfied with what they had achieved. Mohammed bought out Abdullah's share in the company. Bin Laden continued to maintain close ties with the royal family, and gained exclusive rights to mosque and religious building construction in Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries.[5] Bin Laden constructed a $200 million palace called Nassiriyah, located in Riyadh, for King Saud.[6]
When Bin Laden worked on projects in new areas of Saudi Arabia where he did not have acquaintances, he needed to win support from the local sheikhs. To win support, Bin Laden would sometimes marry the daughter of an important local leader, provide her with money, a house, hire her male relatives, and possibly a child. He would then divorce her when the project was complete, but leave her with generous finances. Altogether, Bin Laden had approximatley 22 wives, but per sharia law, he never had more than four wives at the same time. In 1956, Mohammed Bin Laden was in Latakia in Lebanon for business. While there, he took a wife, Alia who came back to Saudi Arabia with Mohammed. Together they had one son -- Osama.[6] The marriage between Mohammed and Alia may have been a concubine and not an official Quranic union.[7]
In 1967, Mohammed died in a plane crash in Oom, in the Asir region of Saudi Arabia.[8] After Mohammed's death, his oldest son, Salem, took over as head of the BinLaden Group.[9]
Hamida Ganem al-Attas (also known as Alia) was one of Mohammed bin Laden's wives and the mother of Osama bin Laden. She came from Syria, and met Mohammed when he was visiting the Syrian coastal town of Latakia in 1956. They had one son together -- Osama. Mohammed Bin Laden had three Saudi wives and for the fourth wife, he kept divorcing them and re-marrying. Hamida was one of Mohammed Bin Laden's fourth wives, and they divorced. After the divorce, Hamida married Mohammed al-Attas, and they had four children. Osama was raised by his mother and lived together with his four half-siblings.[10]
| mid-1904s - 1950 | 1951 - 1959 | 1959 - 1967 |
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| mid-1904s - 1950 | 1951 - 1959 | 1959 - 1967 |
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On his mother's side of the family, Osama has a half brother, Ahmad Mohammed. Ahmad spoke with CNN in March 2002. Ahmad and his mother last saw Osama in January 2001 when they came to Afghanistan for the wedding of one of Osama's sons. Osama told Ahmed that it was not true that he had kidney disease, and did not require dialysis.[13]
When Osama left for Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1979, his wife stayed behind in Saudi Arabia. Though he returned occasionally to Saudi Arabia, to consult with Saudi intelligence, he rarely visited with his family. Yeslam says he saw Osama only a handful of times at family functions.[12]
At age 18, Osama married his first cousin, Najwan Ibrahim Ghanem who came from Syria. Najwa, who was 14 at the time, went to live with Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia. She lives in Damascus, and is the mother of 11 of Bin Laden's approximately 26 children that he has.[14] As permitted in Islam, Bin Laden took three more wives after Najwa.[15] Bin Laden's second wife is Saudi, and the third is from Afghanistan. Both may be in Pakistan, but that is uncertain. The fourth wife, Amal al-Sadah, is from Yemen. Bin Laden married her in 2000 when she was 17 years old. She may have gone back to Yemen, but that is not certain.[16]
At age 12, Osama's son, Abdullah, did visit his father in Afghanistan during the Afghan campaign.[12]