Saudi man known as the ‘polygamist of the century’ married 53 women in 43 years. Here’s why
Now known as the “polygamist of the century,” 63-year-old Saudi man Abu Abdullah claims he’s married a mind-boggling total of 53 women in the span of 43 years. That’s more than one wife a year…
After first tying the knot when he was 20 years old, Abdullah obviously didn’t plan on remarrying—and certainly not doing so 52 times. “When I married for the first time, I did not plan to marry more than one woman because I was feeling comfortable and had children,” he shared with Gulf News.
“But after a while, problems happened and I decided to marry again when I was 23 years old and I informed my wife of my decision,” he continued.
In the name of love, Abdullah went on looking for ‘the one’. And after years of failure with “mostly Saudi women” according to the serial husband, it seems like he’s finally found it in his 53rd wife and has no more plans to remarry. Ah, peace at last.
Speaking to the UAE publication, Abdullah further revealed that his first wife had been older than him—six years older, to be precise. They had a baby together and things were going pretty smoothly at first. But when Abdullah started going on business trips abroad “for three to four months,” he decided to marry foreign women to “save myself from sin.”
In other words, so as to not sin by having sex outside of marriage, Abdullah married other women before eventually having sexual intercourse with them. In Saudi Arabia, while premarital sex or sex outside of marriage is illegal, polygamy isn’t.
A man can have up to four wives if he can meet certain conditions under Sharia law. For example, he must have the financial capacity to afford another marriage and provide for another wife and her family—which begs the question, how the heck can Abdullah afford alimony?
Although the infamous man did not answer this question, he gave Gulf News one last bit of advice for anyone looking for true love: always marry someone older. “Every man in the world wishes to have one woman and remain with her forever… Stability is not to be found with a young woman, but with an old one.”
Recently, another similar story surfaced in Kenya. A 61-year-old man with 15 wives and 107 children were all living together in harmony—don’t ask us how—in a village in Western Kenya. The man, David Sakayo Kaluhana, said he was inspired by King Solomon who allegedly had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
