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By the time Doaa was born, her parents already had three daughters and were facing pressure from the family to have a son. In traditional, patriarchal Syrian society, boys were more valued than girls as people believed they would support the family, whereas daughters would marry and turn their attention to their husbands and in-laws. Shokri, Doaa’s father, was handsome, with curly dark hair. He had been a barber since the age of fourteen and had once worked abroad in Greece and Hungary. Shokri had had plans to return to Europe to find a job and a foreign wife, but after he met Hanaa, Doaa’s mother, his plans changed. Hanaa was just finishing high school when they met at a neighbor’s wedding. She was petite, had long, wavy dark hair, and striking green eyes. She and Shokri were instantly attracted to each other. She found him more worldly and self-confident than the other local guys, and she liked the way he dressed in bell-bottom jeans and played the oud, a string instrument that’s considered the ancestor of the guitar.
Shokri and Hanaa were married when Hanaa was only seventeen. Their first few years together were peaceful and full of love, but slowly things changed. The first time Hanaa overheard her mother-in-law, Fawziyaa, complain that Hanaa and Shokri had no son was after Hanaa gave birth to her third daughter. Hanaa was shocked when she heard Shokri’s relatives tell him that he should find himself a new wife to bear him a son. Despite having to fight against deeply ingrained prejudices and expectations, Shokri was proud of his growing daughters. However, his mother continued to criticize Hanaa and insisted that Shokri deserved sons. The family home, which had once been a sanctuary for Shokri and Hanaa, soon became a place of strife as some of Hanaa’s sisters-in-law joined Shokri’s mother in whispering and gossiping about her inability to bear sons.
When Doaa was born on July 9, 1995, Hanaa received the usual halfhearted congratulations and murmurs of “Next time, inshallah”—God willing—“it might be a boy” from Shokri’s family.
But when Hanaa looked at the solemn, earnest baby, she sensed something special about the little girl. When a well-respected and wealthy family friend visiting from out of town came by one day to see the new baby, she helped establish Doaa’s place in her family. The friend, unable to have her own children, had an acute feel for the family dynamics and sensed the pressure Hanaa was under to have a boy and decided to help her. When the family gathered in the kitchen to welcome their special guest, she took Doaa carefully in her arms and held her gently. She looked down into the tiny baby’s serious face, placed a finger on her forehead, and announced, “This one is special.” Referring to the meaning of the name Doaa, the friend added, “She is truly a prayer from God.” Before departing, the friend gave Hanaa ten thousand Syrian pounds—a small fortune—as a gift for Doaa. The rest of the family was astonished. The friend’s exotic status as a wealthy resident of the Gulf States commanded respect. After that, Shokri’s mother always insisted on holding Doaa, and for a time no more insults were hurled at Hanaa.
As Doaa grew up, she enchanted most everyone she met. She was extremely shy, unlike her more outgoing sisters, yet people always felt compelled to draw her out of her shell. She had a sweetness about her, and every time Hanaa took her out, people on the street commented on her beautiful chocolate-colored eyes framed with long eyelashes and her calm demeanor. “From the start,” Hanaa remembers, “we knew she would bring luck to the family.”
Three years after Doaa was born, Hanaa gave birth to another daughter, Saja, and two years later to a sixth, Nawara. Suddenly the talk of “poor Shokri” with no sons flared up again. Also now, the eight members of the family were all living in a thirteen-by-sixteen-foot room with one window.
The rest of the extended family was growing as well, as Doaa’s aunts and uncles also had more children. Large families are common in Syria, since the birth of a child is considered lucky, and a big family is a sign of a couple’s happiness as well as assurance that they will be taken care of in old age.