Najwa Ghanem (Arabic:نجوى غانم; born 1958)[1] is aSyrian woman who was the first wife and first cousin ofOsama bin Laden, being the daughter of his mother's brother. She is also known asUmm Abdallah (mother ofAbdallah).[2]
Najwa was born to Ibrahim and Nabeeha inLatakia,United Arab Republic (present-daySyria), and her family was originally fromYemen. She had five siblings.[1] Osama married Najwa in 1974 when she was almost 16 in Latakia.[3] She travelled with him toSudan andAfghanistan.
According toAbu Jandal, she left Afghanistan before theSeptember 11 attacks and did not return.[2] According to Najwa and her sonOmar bin Laden, desiring to return to a normal life, she left Afghanistan sometime between September 7 and 9, 2001.[4] In 2005, Huthaifa Azzam, son ofAbdullah Azzam, stated that she was living inDamascus with her son Abdel Rahman.[2] From about April 2012, she moved to Qatar, where seven of her surviving children also continued to reside.[5]
She is the mother of 11 children, includingSaad.[6] She co-authoredGrowing Up bin Laden with Omar.[7] Her daughter Iman who was released byIran in 2010 went to live with her in Syria.[8] According to a close family member in 2011, Najwa's mother died of shock and grief after hearing of herson-in-law's death.[9]
^bin Laden, Najwa;bin Laden, Omar; Sasson, Jean.Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World. pp. 281–283, 312.
^Cathy Scott-Clark & Adrian Levy,The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight, New York: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 468, 488-489.
^bin Laden, Najwa;bin Laden, Omar; Sasson, Jean.Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World. pp. 415–421.
