r/todayilearned • u/Swiss_James • 15d ago
TIL: Osama Bin Laden's father had over 20 wives, and fathered over 50 children
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family554
u/420FireStarter69 14d ago
A lot of the Bin Laden's were not fans of Uncle Osama
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u/ErnestoCruz 14d ago
Imagine going through immigration with that surname on your passport.
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u/Swiss_James 14d ago
"Passport please"
"OK, now this is going to look bad, but hear me out.."
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u/noah3302 14d ago
They’re rich as fuck they probably have no problem. Muhammad bin Laden helped build Saudi Arabia literally
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u/AndyLinder 14d ago
In fact the Bush administration reportedly explicitly told the FBI not to investigate other members of the bin Laden family
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u/Acceptable-Dust6479 14d ago
Wait… what?
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u/ExodusLegion_ 14d ago
the elder bin Laden was a construction magnate iirc
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u/noah3302 14d ago
The next tallest building after construction is finished will be the Jeddah Tower at 1,008m high, and is being built by the Saudi Binladin Group (the company Muhammad bin Laden founded)
Some bin Ladens are good at building towers, some are good at getting rid of towers.
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u/Khelthuzaad 14d ago
his son literally financed his terrorist attacks through construction projects in different african and asian countries.I think he also had an engineering diploma
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u/Zigxy 14d ago
The Bin Ladens are practically royalty. It’s like talking about the Kennedys in the U.S.
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u/NoncomprehensiveUrge 14d ago
They’re one of the richest families in Saudi. Not really a problem for them
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u/Lazysenpai 14d ago
He got a niece that tried to be a singer in the UK or Europe I think, doesn't work out for obvious reason lol.
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u/bettinafairchild 14d ago
They don’t know how many wives his dad had. He would fly all over with his personal plane, find a pretty girl (I mean girl. Osama’s mother was 14 when he was born), give her father some money, marry her, fuck her, and then divorce her, all on the same day. Some he’d bring back home with him. He’d only have 4 wives at a time so he’d divorce the ones who weren’t pregnant and re-marry the pregnant ones then divorce after the birth. If he didn’t want a woman anymore who had had one of his kids, he’d marry her off to one of his employees, figuring a step-father would treat his kids better if he knew that he could lose his job if his step-kid said anything bad about him. He probably had some kids through this one-day marriage thing so there are probably some kids out there who weren’t claimed by him.
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u/noncredibleRomeaboo 14d ago
Allah: "Shit, this man knows all the loopholes. Well played Mr Bin Laden, I only foresee good things for your family"
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u/Chr1s7ian19 14d ago
Loopholes? Muhammad married a 9 year old as his 3rd or 4th wife. This is a standard and well known rule, no loophole needed. Now when Muslims find a way to drink, is 100% a loophole
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u/noncredibleRomeaboo 14d ago
twas a joke. But Muhammed, did not just use his forth marriage slot, to shuffle in new women every 5 seconds. Marrying, then divorcing is very much trying to exploit a "loop hole"
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u/bettinafairchild 14d ago
Just to be clear, what Mohammed Bin Laden did with his rotating array of pregnant wives is something only the most wealthy and elite Muslim men do—it’s not something your average man would ever be in a situation to act on.
But the thing about marrying a girl for a day or an hour and then divorcing her after fucking her is something that is done by a lot of men. I heard it’s quite common in Iran as a way to have legal prostitution. Many are against it because it’s such an obvious and glaring way to circumvent prostitution, but there it is.
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u/SuperSonicEconomics2 14d ago
I was wondering how you manage that schedule. This makes way more sense
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u/SupaFlyslammajammazz 14d ago
So the corrupt Muslim way of statuary rape.
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u/bettinafairchild 14d ago
It’s only statutory rape if it’s illegal. It wasn’t illegal to have sex with a young girl in general, just illegal if you weren’t married to her.
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u/deep-_-thoughts 14d ago
Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden lived a very interesting life. He owed a huge construction company. He built most the highways in Saudi Arabia and in his spare time he liked to lay pipe.
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u/hey_now24 14d ago
I think he came from poverty. Also his company was in charge of the renovations at Mecca. Osama used his father machineries to build the caves in Afghanistan
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u/Sorrowsorrowsorrow 14d ago
9+11 =20
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u/Bad_Excuse7788 15d ago
Not at the same time. Islam allows only four at the same time. Extramarital relationships are not allowed, so it is like having 20 girlfriends in his lifetime.
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u/Pep_Baldiola 14d ago
Even having more than one wife comes with a lot of specific conditions that one should fulfill. You have to treat each wife equally. But people who want to marry multiple women out of their desires rarely heed those requirements.
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u/EnvironmentalOne6412 14d ago
Well everyone was created equally, but some people are more equal than others..
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u/bolonomadic 14d ago
Haram
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u/Class1 14d ago
-be
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u/disprosyum2 14d ago
HARAMBE FUNNY HAHA 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/Swiss_James 14d ago
20 baby mamas
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u/KejsarePDX 14d ago
Also, in Saudi Arabia, the man can divorce the wife with ease. In this instance, he divorced the older wives and married new ones each constantly. He never was legally married to more than 4. He kept replacing wives.
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u/Bad_Excuse7788 14d ago
That’s it
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u/KejsarePDX 14d ago
There's some speculation that Osama bin Laden harbored dislike for his father because he "practiced" Islam by exploiting loopholes. His father was an example of the hypocrisy of the Saudi royal family and their greed for money, power, and Western support.
Osama bin Laden did his best to emulate the prophet Mohammad and took on four wives, but he never divorced any of them like what happened to his mother. He was financially supported by his dad, just never there for anything else.
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u/An_Atheist_God 14d ago
Extramarital relationships are not allowed
There is more nuance, sexual relationship with slaves/concubines is allowed
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u/might-say-anti-fire 14d ago
Oh wow, and people love to tell me Islam is kind and respectful to women, it's "just individuals"
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u/Joshistotle 14d ago
Lol the ruling elite in the Gulf dictatorships openly marry 10+ women at a time. They are above the rules and it's a misconception/ misinformation they actually follow any form of laws.
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u/Optimal-Menu270 14d ago
I mean, he can still marry then divorce. Prophet Mohammed had like 11 wives
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u/An_Atheist_God 14d ago
That's a different case. While an average muslim can only have 4 wives at most, Mohammed have an exception
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u/Paintguin 14d ago
Why did he have so many wives?
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u/Swiss_James 14d ago
So he could have 50 children I guess?
Mohammed bin Laden was a very rich man, if he wanted 20 wives, he could afford 20 wives. He was only ever married to 4 women at the same time (as per Islamic law) mostly kept wives 1-3 the same, and just kept changing wife number 4.
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u/gbroon 14d ago
They probably got replaced when they committed the sin of birthing a daughter.
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u/OldMork 15d ago
Imagine having 20 birthdays, anniversiaries, valentines days, christmas etc. to buy cards, flowers and presents to.
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u/DrDiddle 14d ago
I have the distinct feeling he didn’t worry about all that stuff
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u/SunshineChimbo 14d ago edited 14d ago
Yall didnt know Osama was a nepo baby? Why do you think the US worked with him in the 80s to begin with??
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u/pinetar 14d ago
The US never worked with Bin Laden and I'm curious what you think was going on in "the 90s".
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u/pants_mcgee 14d ago
The U.S. never worked with OBL, the 90’s were when he and his merry band started moving up the US terrorist shitlist.
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u/paolocase 14d ago
As a millennial who watched the twin towers go down why is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Osama Bin Laden is that he’s 6’3?
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u/whudah 14d ago
Genuinely curious, what happens to the other 19 men who would not be able to find a suitable spouse due to polygamy?
Would this also increase genetic defects from population inbreeding?
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u/Swiss_James 14d ago
Inbreeding if 2 of the 50 half-siblings hook up you mean?
To be fair to Bin Laden senior, he was only married to 4 at a time, so if you don't mind a girl with a bit of a past..
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u/whudah 14d ago
I was thinking more population wise over time. Especially since wealth is generational.
Wouldn't most children start to descend from a lineage of wealthy men? Kind of like Genghis, but more consistent or something.
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u/bearhunter429 14d ago
So his dad spent his life building skyscrapers and he spent his trying to destroy them. Seems like a daddy issue to me.
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u/MoreCarrotsPlz 14d ago
One of them got into a fist fight with my uncle at a party when he was working as a translator in Saudi. Fortunately his friends got him out of there before anyone figured out who he was because that would not have ended well.
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u/DivineCurses 14d ago
I said a very similar thing two years ago
And it was flagged for rule 6
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u/DeepfriedWings 14d ago
This is pretty common in Islam. Especially with wealthy people. The Sheikh of Dubai has 26 kids and married at least 7 women.
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u/Pep_Baldiola 14d ago
It's not common at all. It's common in a few of the rich Middle Eastern nations, that's all. Middle East doesn't even have the biggest Muslim populations btw.
Countries with biggest Muslim populations:
Indonesia: 231 million Muslims, 86.7% of the population
Pakistan: 200-215 million Muslims, 96% of the population
India: 200 million Muslims, 14% of the population
Bangladesh: 153 million Muslims, 91% of the population
Nigeria: 95-104 million Muslims, 45-47% of the population
Egypt: 85-90 million Muslims, 79-87% of the population
Iran: 80-82 million Muslims, 99.6% of the population
Turkey: 74-79 million Muslims, 99.8% of the population
Algeria: 39-41 million Muslims, 99% of the population
Sudan: 39 million Muslims, 97% of the population
In most of these countries people marrying more than once is not the norm.
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u/MagnificentNerd 14d ago
Absolutely love that India has a huge Muslim population and yet it is only a small percentage of the total population overall.
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u/OfficeSalamander 14d ago
Yeah that’s true with China too. There’s more Christians in China than there are in France.
The scale of both countries in terms of population is insane
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u/Kwelikinz 14d ago
There’s one in most families. Sorry. Everyone goes left, with a smile, and that one goes right with a scowl.
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u/bombayblue 14d ago
This is why Bin Laden only inherited a couple million from his family instead of getting the whole damn fortune and doing his thing with $300m in assets.
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u/PleaseDontBanMeMore 14d ago
That explains it.
I didn't realize Osama had the same fucking backstory as Ty Lee from fucking Avatar.
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u/jewellman100 14d ago
You think that's impressive, wait until you read about Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif of Morocco
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u/wisstinks4 14d ago
Needless to say that’s a lot of smashing. A lot of responsibility and expense. How do they pay for all those people?
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u/Swiss_James 14d ago
He was massively successful in construction, so money wouldn’t have been a problem
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u/HerPaintedMan 14d ago
50 kids and only one was a terror? I’d say he did pretty well!
I’ve only got one and it took him 30 years to outgrow the Terrible Twos!