Bakr joined a clique at the engineering school that seemed oblivious to all this. “We never talked about race or the war,” recalled Joaquin Avino, a Cuban American classmate. “The only thing we talked about was graduating, getting a job, becoming an engineer, and making some money.” Many of the civil engineering students were second-generation Cuban exiles; they belonged to “a relatively conservative culture within the university,” said John Hall, another classmate. Most commuted to school from their parents’ homes. Hall’s father was a city fireman; Avino worked part-time as a baggage handler at the airport. Bakr fit right in—quiet, serious, pleasant, a bookworm, with no interest in rambunctious student life. He was particularly friendly with the Cubans, and he partnered with them on lab projects that involved analyzing soil composition and calculating stability and stress in building structures. At exam time, his results were solid but average. He stood out among the twenty to thirty students in the civil engineering course only because he wore silk shirts and drove a Cadillac Seville.5
He lived off campus in a suburban rambler with a small swimming pool in the Kendall/Pinecrest neighborhood, just south of Coral Gables. His neighbors included an elementary school and a “Youth For Christ” facility. Family joined him eventually. His half-brother Omar also enrolled in the University of Miami’s engineering school, class of 1974, and rented an apartment a half mile from Bakr’s house. At one point, Bakr returned home to marry, and he brought his new wife to Miami. She was Haifa Nabulsi, a beautiful Syrian blonde whom he had first met in Damascus when she was about sixteen; she came from an exiled Palestinian family originally from Nazareth. While Bakr completed his studies, Haifa gave birth to two sons, Nawaf and Firas; the Bin Ladens obtained American passports for each of the boys. Bakr would not permit his university classmates to socialize with his wife, and he made a lasting impression on one of them while describing his family when he mentioned that no man in Saudi Arabia bothered to count how many sisters he had. Still, apart from these cultural idiosyncrasies, with his big-finned car, his young boys, his house on a manicured corner lot, and his earnest sense of purpose, Bakr seemed to some of his classmates to be just like them—a young immigrant householder in pursuit of the American dream. As they got to know him better, however, they learned that he would be returning to his family’s business in Saudi Arabia after graduation. Bakr offered one Cuban American classmate, Jorge Rodriguez, a job in Jeddah at double the starting salary he could expect to earn in the United States, but Jorge’s wife announced, “By no means—I’m staying in America.” Bakr departed and they gradually lost touch with him.6
In Jeddah he and his family moved into one of the suburban villas at the Kilo 7 family compound. Carmen Bin Laden befriended Haifa and found her “open-minded and lively”; they tanned together beside Haifa’s swimming pool and “howled with laughter at how depraved the mothers-in-law would think us if they caught sight of our bathing suits.” Carmen found Bakr formal but kind, and unlike some Saudi men, he did not criticize or shun Haifa when she gave birth to a daughter. Bakr was religious but not insistent or strident. He prayed punctually when in Saudi Arabia, but when he traveled to France, he did not search for mosques or carry a prayer rug to business meetings. “He is the type of person who doesn’t like to attract the attention of others for things that are not necessary,” said a longtime business partner.7
At the office, Bakr tried to keep up with Salem’s demands and peripatetic deal making. Gradually other brothers returned to the kingdom with engineering degrees to ease some of his burden. Ghalib ran the construction equipment yard, helped to manage procurement from Caterpillar, and supervised projects in the field. Omar supervised complex building projects on his own.
Yahya proved to be a particular workhorse; he was exceptionally well organized and seemed to pride himself on putting in the very longest hours. He made a strong impression on some of the business partners and bankers who met with him. He had always been devout and deeply reflective; asked a question, he might pause for several searching minutes before he answered. He smoked cigarettes from a long plastic holder and had slightly bulging eyes, which created an exaggerated effect when he stared out during these long, contemplative pauses. In a top hat, he would have resembled Penguin from the Batman movies.
This engineering coterie spent most of their days concentrating on their work as young construction executives, but as they approached middle age, and as the Islamic awakening spread in Saudi Arabia, their lifestyles became, in some cases, more overtly pious. Non-Muslim partners and friends noted this more explicit religiosity, but they saw, too, that it fell very much within the kingdom’s mainstream, which was becoming more conservative. Yahya’s wife, who had not previously covered herself, took the veil. Ghalib’s did, too. Charity and the Hajj became even more important to family routines. By the mid-1980s, at least one of the Bin Ladens’ business partners felt that some of the more traditional engineering coterie—Yahya, in particular—had begun to push Salem to ensure that Osama received all the support he needed as he became involved with the Afghan war. In this partner’s analysis, while these brothers did not share Osama’s radicalism, they had become very proud, nonetheless, of Osama’s charitable work on behalf of suffering Afghans, and they appreciated his ardent commitment to a defining Islamic cause. According to a senior Saudi government official, Bakr accompanied Osama to Pakistan on one of his early visits there.8
These were also the brothers who took the lead on construction and renovation work in Mecca and Medina. After he became king, Fahd took a number of steps to enhance his credentials as the regent and guardian of Islam’s birthplace. In 1985 he inaugurated an eight-year, multibillion-dollar project to expand, once more, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, so that it could accommodate almost a half million additional worshippers. The massive spending in Medina helped Fahd to ingratiate himself with the Saudi religious authorities who mistrusted his secular lifestyle, and it increased his visibility across the Islamic world. As Saudi kings had done for four decades, Fahd handed the work to the Bin Ladens—without competitive bidding. The king’s decision was consistent with his method for allocating spheres of commissions in government contracting, according to the senior Saudi government official. Fahd identified reliable agents or business families—some Saudi, and some, such as the Lebanese developer Rafik Hariri, who were not—and gave them sole control of a particular sector, such as arms sales, roadwork, or palace construction. In this way Fahd could direct how contracts and commissions would be distributed, and who would benefit from extra payments. The system reinforced loyalty and secrecy. The Bin Ladens had once been dominant in highway construction, but after 1985 their major windfalls came through the huge, exclusive contracts Fahd awarded them in the holy cities—first the Prophet’s Mosque renovation in Medina, and then a similar project in Mecca.
The expansion of the Prophet’s Mosque contemplated by Fahd was mind-boggling in its scale—a new building of eighty-two thousand square meters, a new plaza and pedestrian spaces of more than two hundred thousand square meters, new and taller minarets, eighteen new staircases, six new escalators, sixty-four new doors and gates. For the Bin Ladens, Bakr played the key role in creating the detailed plans and executing them after approval by Fahd.
The work spoke to Bakr as an engineer, a businessman, a Bin Laden, a Saudi, and a Muslim; the projects became the overriding source of his professional identity and his pride. The work offered a rare and privileged opportunity to leave an authorial mark on the holiest places in his faith. European and Arab architects, designers, and suppliers all contributed to the project over time, but from the beginning, Bakr played a decisive role. He delivered the detailed presentations of designs to Fahd and answered the king’s questions, and he drove the golf cart when Fahd visited Medina for an inspection tour. “Many a time he would require us to repeat the plans and the designs, to improve on this side, or develop that side,” Bakr later wrote of Fahd. “He used to visit the two projects at various phases and choose the best and most suitable materials with no regard for financial cost.” The king even issued “a standing order to establish an open-ended account” to fund the work.9