Preface for Three Steps Behind

In her first book, Three Steps Behind, Ms. Ali takes us on a personal journey through the dark corridors of oppression, discrimination, and servitude - experienced under the patriarchal systems of her native Pakistan and her once adopted land of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This unique perspective, of the daughter of a diplomat, a once venerated model, a loving wife, and an educated mother; exposes the hypocrisy of cultural practices and flawed religious interpretations, which ultimately form, as she highlights vividly in her flashbacks; the framework for gender inequality and racial intolerance. Yet, Ms. Ali, a strong willed modern Muslim woman, despite suffering everyday humiliations in settings that revile human rights, under the unwarranted disguise of Islam; never loses focus of securing a future for her children, far away from the toxic systems of both cultures.