Muhammad Al-Abdullah Okaz/Saudi Gazette DAMMAM — Molouk Al-Mahouzi, an aunt of the late Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto's mother, was buried in Qatif on Friday. She was 99 years old. Al-Mahouzi hailed from a well-known family in Qatif, a family known for their religious knowledge. Her father, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Mahouzi, was a renowned scholar in the governorate. Dr. Muhammad Sami, grandson of Molouk's sister, described her as a very religious person who adhered to noble ethics and had contact with many of her late father's friends, mostly scholars. Her mother was an Iraqi woman, which is why she kept traveling a lot between Iraq and the Kingdom when she was alive, according to Sami. Molouk did not have any children and her husband died a few years back. Sami lived with her between 1960 and 1975 at her house located at Al-Qalaa district in Qatif. Afterward, he traveled overseas to study medicine. She spoke Urdu, Arabic and Persian, learning the latter from her Iraqi mother, who was fluent in it. She learned Urdu in Pakistan during her frequent visits to her niece, Nasrat, who was the wife of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father. Arabic was her mother tongue. Molouk lived four to five years in Iraq and returned to the Kingdom in 1986 before the Iraq-Iran war. She used to tell her relatives the story of her close family relation with Benazir's mother. She said one of her mother's relatives in Iraq proposed to her sister Fatimah. Later, Fatimah got married when she was nine years old to a young Iraqi man, called Mirza Al-Sabonji, who was passionate about reading and travel. Al-Sabonji went to India as a tourist and discovered that soap-making as an industry could generate huge profits. He returned to Iraq and asked Fatimah to travel with him to India. She agreed to his request. Fatimah had four daughters and two sons with her husband. The sons died young while two o her daughters, Shafiqah and Bahjat, got married to Iraqi men. Her youngest daughter, Zainah, was born in India. The fourth daughter, Nusrat, loved reading and traveling just like her Iraqi father. She went to Pakistan to study engineering. It was in Pakistan that she met her husband Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and fell in love with him before he became a well-known political leader. Bhutto proposed to Nusrat but her father refused to let his daughter get married to a Pakistani man. However, the father eventually gave in and consented to the marriage. Molouk attended her niece's wedding and told relatives that her dream came true when she saw Nusrat and Bhutto getting married. She said Bhutto's children, Murtaza and Benazir, inherited their father's wisdom and leadership skills. “My niece Nusrat was always talking with pride about her daughter, Benazir, and lauded her sternness and strictness when dealing with matters,” Molouk said. Molouk opened her house to the general public who wished to offer their condolences for the assassination of Benazir a few years ago.
