Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei has been under fire of late for his implementation of full Shariah law throughout his country, which includes corporal punishment for un-Islamic offences such as alcohol consumption, adultery, and homosexuality.
But an American woman has come out with allegations that as a teenager in the early 90’s, she was gifted by the Sultan’s brother, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, to be Sultan’s decidedly non-Shariah compliant plaything for a night. She claims that that night alone, she and the Sultan had violated two of the strict Islamic laws being implemented in Brunei today. And it happened in a Kuala Lumpur hotel penthouse.
In a personal account by Jillian Lauren on The Daily Beast, she recounts how she was lured as an 18-year old by a “casting call” for a position in a Singapore nightclub; the actual vacancy was more akin to being part of a harem in Brunei, tending to the personal needs of the Sultan’s brother. She describes the experience as being glamorous and exciting at first, but also lonely,demoralizing, and “full of constant low-grade humiliations”, including the incident in KL during which she was passsed over from brother to brother as a gift.
Lauren goes into more details, to be sure, in her New York Times bestselling book Some Girls: My Life In A Harem. It might be that this is a well-timed effort to attract more attention to a published book, but even if some of what Lauren claims is true, it could be damaging to Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah’s efforts to impose strict Islamic laws of conduct in his kingdom – under God, kings are just human too.
It should also shine a light on the recent surge in efforts to implement Hudud law in Malaysia: who watches the watchmen?
