Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, had at least 54 children from 22 different wives. So while Laden was attending college, he and a friend decided they would each also take several wives and have large families.
Laden himself had over 20 children from six wives.
"Laden later developed a theory on the advantages of having several women in one's life. Four was the optimal number, prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad himself, according to bin Laden," writes investigative journalist Kaare Sorensen in his new book "The Mind of a Terrorist."
According to the author, Headley was, as usual, very excited about Laden's thoughts, including those on women.
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"Headley himself loved women. And he had many of them. He bragged to a group of friends that he had been with more black women than his entire class at the military academy combined. That was about one hundred students," the book, published by Penguin Random House India, says.
"But he (Headley) found Pakistani women to be cumbersome. They'd all seen too many Bollywood movies with big, dramatic romance scenes, and they didn't want to live their lives as the third or fourth wife in a complicated marriage," argues Sorensen.
However, the author says Headley's many women were also
his Achilles' heel.
"He could manage the American narcotics authorities; connections to the drug trade; heroin smugglers in Pakistan; major Iqbal from the intelligence service; and Pasha, Sajid Mir and the others in Lashkar, and he could juggle all his roles and opportunities at once - without everything coming crashing down to the ground.
Headley revealed too much and there was always one who talked; her name was Faiza Outalha, the author says.
"She was originally from Morocco, but she was studying medicine at a university in Lahore, and it's not difficult to see why Headley fell for her. In late February 2007, the two got married in Pakistan...Near the end of 2007, less than a year after they got married, his relationship with Faiza was on the verge of collapse," the book says.
"She was angry and loudly let the agents from the department of state's security agency know that her husband, an American citizen, was a terrorist. He had stayed in Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps and sometimes spoke about suicide missions, she said. And he might be involved in some activities in Mumbai.
"A few months before the Mumbai attack, Faiza went directly to Lashkar leader Hafiz Saeed and asked for help in saving their troubled marriage. Saeed then paid a visit to Headley, who downplayed the matter and explained that he had been busy with his Lashkar duties and hadn't had much time to take care of wife number two," the book says.