extended family to take a ten year old boy, a boy who probably doesn't speak Arabic in more than a cursory sort of way, away from the only parent he has left and force him to live with relatives who he doesn't know/can't remember very well.

If they have proof she is an alcoholic or she abuses him, that's one thing. But minus any damning evidence like that, the abduction comes off as the family's putting their own selfish desires ahead of what's best for the child (as fubar pointed out above).

One wonders if they have been making the effort to visit with him in Bahrain while he has been there with his mother. Have they been Skype chatting with him online to keep the connection going after his father's death? If they haven't, then that certainly demonstrates to me that they couldn't be bothered with him much before now.

Marriage is a wonderful institution...but who wants to live in an institution?" -- Groucho Marx