Revenge of the Secret Ministry

It looks like the Ministry is monitoring this blog, I tried to drive out this morning only to find construction had blocked all the roads from the apartment building! Well, one 1-lane road was open, but a massive truck decided that would be a great place to stop and slowly offload construction equipment.

It took me going the wrong way down a one-way street and going over two sidewalks to get out of the neighborhood. Better luck next time Ministry! :P


By the way I just got back from West Bay, City Center mall is still closed. No word on when it will reopen but dohanews is reporting that many workers are there trying to get the fire saftey enchancements completed.

The Secret Ministry Strikes Again

They came in the night, without warning, while the city slept.

I awoke to a different world, of red and white barriers and upturned pavement.

The Secret Ministry had struck again.

How long the repairs will take is anyone's guess. Thankfully it is not causing major disruptions and it is still easy to drive around the neighborhood. Friends of mine have not been so fortunate in the past. One time a friend of mine was almost trapped in his compound as road construction work pretty much surrounded the whole complex. It's not that bad here.

. . . so far.

:)

Gold Souq

As of today at five o'clock City Centre was still closed.

I just got back from Souq Waqif and the new Gold Souq is open. I took a quick wander around, it's air-conditioned, has a nice courtyard area with a small pool, and also had a café with a few tables. Not all the stores were open yet but the ones that were appeared to be very high-end -- some of the jewelry on display had really large stones (I'm talking “Holy &%^#!” stones). The jewelry was clearly for people with lots of money to spend.

Pictures:

City Centre Update and Summer Is Here

Summer is fully upon us and the temperatures are reaching well into the 40s. I can handle that as the evenings are hot, but manageable IF there is no humidity. On those evenings where the humidity kicks in it’s unbearable, sweat is pouring off you within five minutes of walking around.

Now I like to walk around, which gets impractical in the summer. My main way of beating the summer heat and getting some exercise was to go to a big mall and walk around there. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of options now.

Villaggio is still closed (of course) and it likely will not reopen for months, with some rumours saying that it might be shut down for good. We’ll have to wait and see for an official announcement but I certainly think it won't open for the rest of summer at least.

Despite the original optimism that it would only be closed for a few days City Centre Mall remains closed -- two weeks later. There's lots of speculation about when it will reopen, ranging from tomorrow to weeks. Have to wait and see on that one.

That leaves Landmark as the only large mall left and it is insanely busy. It always was busy but with the closure of the other two malls it's now the main shopping centre for 1.5 million people. If you're dripping with sweat after a five-minute walk, well, you'll probably be walking longer than that just to get from your parking space to that mall.

There's not much else that can be done. In the Middle East the summers are incredibly hot so you tend to stay indoors. Malls provide a large air-conditioned area with which you can wander around, meet friends, have a coffee or a meal, and generally have a pleasant time. There's little else in Doha that can provide that so that means coming up with alternative things to do. I'm thinking of going to the gym more, meeting friends at coffee shops or at various homes (I had some friends over at my place this weekend), and I might have to splurge on a getaway weekend somewhere just to change things up a little. I'm thinking Oman but we’ll see.

Is It a Sport or a Game?

Occasionally there is a debate about whether a certain thing is a game or a sport. This tends to come up around Olympic time when people criticize certain events as not being a "real sport". Given that the Olympics are right around the corner and figured I'd offer my views on the debate as I've always had a rule of thumb to differentiate between a game and a sport:


If you can be over 45 years old, and/or overweight, and/or drink beer while playing, yet still be one of the best at it -- it's a game, not a sport.


To me sports are athletic, you have to be in peak physical condition to be the best, whereas that is not necessarily the case with a game. That doesn't mean that certain skills are not necessary to be the best again, in fact they have to be extremely skilled to be the best, but not athletic. For the Olympics, that means games probably shouldn't be there.

So what does that mean for various events?


Chess – game. I know occasionally there is a push to include it in the Olympics (it is in the Asian Games) but I disagree with that.

Synchronized swimming -- this one always gets flak from people but under my definition it's definitely a sport.

Bowling – game.

Golf – hmmmmm, I will have to leave that one open for debate. Golfers seem to peak in their 20s and 30s so there appears to be a level of athleticism involved. I don't follow golf much so I couldn't really say how likely it would be for someone in their 40s to be a top-20 golfer. Are you allowed to drink beer between holes of a major golf tournament?

Curling -- I'm going to get in trouble for this one from my fellow Canadians – game.

Baseball -- maybe in the olden days you could have been overweight and out of shape but I don't think that's true anymore (so forget about bringing up those late-career pictures of Babe Ruth everyone) – sport.

Darts -- I think in Britain it's mandatory to drink beer while playing it ;-) Game.

Archery and Shooting – hmmmmm, don’t know. Can't think of why you can't be 45 or overweight and not be an excellent shot -- game unless someone can argue otherwise.

Equestrian -- you probably won't do well if you're overweight, and you can’t drink beer on the horse, but I think you can be over 45 and still win – game.

Table tennis -- occasionally maligned by Westerners but if you've ever seen it played at an Olympic level there is no way someone who is out of shape is going to be at the top – sport.

Wrestling – sport (hopefully it is not common for there to be top wrestlers over the age of 45, otherwise this will have to be the exception that proves the rule). Sumo wrestling is definately the exception that proves the rule on the overweight criteria.

Ice Dancing – sport. While not as physically grueling as, say, pairs figure skating you still need to be really fit.


Try the definition out with other events, if you can find some exceptions let me know.

Oman

Okay, here are the promised pictures.

First, my friend Serdar, his family, and I drove up to the mountains.




And wandered around an abandoned village on a trail above a wadi.








We were planning to go further along the trail but it was just too hot so we went back down and hung out in the town of Bahla, which has a massive fort and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Unfortunately the fort was still being renovated so we couldn't tour it but my understanding is it will reopen later this year.







Later we went to the nearby town of Jibreen because we saw a sign that said “Jibreen Castle, 4km”. We decided to check it out thinking it would be some small ruin and instead saw this:



It was massive! With dozens of rooms in something like five levels. It was a fantastic Castle, and we were the only tourists there.







Afterwards we continued on to the city of Nizwa, once the capital of Oman, today it contains a nice fort and large souq area.






We wandered around the souq for a while before I headed back to Muscat to catch a flight home.

It was a great trip but it was a bit hot. Because we were up in the mountains it was a dry heat rather than humid butwalking around was like walking next to a giant hairdryer! That said, Oman is a great country to visit and it's a shame more tourists don't go there. When the weather is cooler I plan on renting a 4x4 and explore the countryside for a couple weeks.

Car Inspection 2012

I had to get my car inspected this morning as part of renewing the registration. The process was pretty much the same as last year only this time, because I had a couple of scratches on the door (from some fool in the parking lot opening their car door too hard), the inspectors deemed it a “fault” and said my car didn't pass. Seriously, the two scratches were about an inch long! Apparently the inspectors are instructed to be conservative and write up any problem.

So what do you do in that situation? At the side of the building is another line up with a Ministry Officer who you go to for a second opinion. Drive up, hand him the report, he takes a quick look, and if he thinks it's minor signs off that you can renew your registration. Which of course he did in my case.

Other than that it was a pretty smooth process. Driving in the Industrial Area is a bit of a pain though but c’est la vie.

Villaggio Tragedy and City Centre Update

Apparently the first report is out and it points to an electrical fire at the Nike store as the source. No evidence of arson or other wrongdoing. I haven't gone through the full report but I believe there is a link to it at dohanews.co. A criminal investigation is still ongoing.

So imagine my surprise when I stopped by City Centre mall this morning only to find it completely closed. The guard wasn't sure why but I later found out through websites and texts from friends that the Ministry of Interior had closed it for inspections. Later word was that the mall would be closed for at least two days because something didn't conform to safety regulations. Looks like the ministries are starting to crack down. Closing the largest mall in Qatar for two days over the weekend is pretty tough.

I was out at lunch with a couple of friends when I heard the news. With both Villaggio and City Centre closed that left only one main mall open on the weekend – Landmark. We decided to go just to see how crazy it would be. (I know, I know, let's chalk it up to morbid curiosity.)

Yep, it was pretty crazy. It was difficult to even get a table in a café and this was mid-afternoon. We left by six before it got too insane.

While I'm glad to see that the Government is stepping up inspections I sure hope City Centre isn’t closed for long. There's no way all of Doha can go to Landmark.

Away on Business

I was out of the country last week for work. It coincided with a weekend trip I had already planned with a friend of mine so it was a bit annoying as I had to change my plane tickets but c'est la vie.

The weekend saw me in my favorite GCC-vacation country. No, not Dubai, I was in Oman. I visited sites near Jebel Shams, had a great time.

I will post pictures this week.

City Centre Update

Happened to be in City Centre Mall on Friday afternoon. By about 4:30 in the afternoon it definitely seemed to be busier than usual and by the time I left around six o'clock it was pretty crazy. Busier than Thursday night.

Again the police were there. A Traffic Policeman was out in front of the mall trying to stop people double (and triple) parking in the area near the taxis. Yes, technically it’s not parking because there was always someone in the car but the police were moving them on anyway. I think it's still okay to drop off and pick up people, you just can't wait around.

There are lots of illegally-parked cars across the road and again there were Traffic Police ticketing the cars. I'm not sure if they use stickers anymore, they simply take a picture of the car. I guess that way if you protest the ticket they will just show you the photo. The people who received tickets may not even have known it until they go online to check.

The ticketing officer was behind the skyscrapers, by that vacant lot near Bio-Bil and the W, and there were a lot of cars on the sidewalks for him to ticket.

It looks like if you are going to City Centre Mall on the weekends you're pretty much guaranteed to get a ticket if you park illegally anywhere in the area.

City Centre Mall

I work in West Bay close to the City Centre Mall and since I didn't have anything pressing to do this evening I decided to go over there after work to see how crowded it would be given that the most popular mall (Villaggio) is now closed. There's only three major malls in Qatar so the closure of one is likely to make the crowds even worse at the others. Not that any of them were suffering for business, City Centre was always notorious for not having enough parking on the weekends. I figured I may as well get an idea of how crowded it's going to be for the next few months so I'm not tempted some weekend evening to go there.

Turns out that while it was crowded, wandering around at 8:00pm I didn't think it was any more crowded than usual. The traffic outside wasn't any worse than usual. The number of people in the mall hadn't significantly increased. Guess people found something else to do.

As I was leaving I noticed that the Traffic Police were wandering around taking photos of any illegally parked cars to issue them tickets, including across the street from the mall and around the nearby skyscrapers. I know the parking situation there is terrible but don't park on the sidewalks people!

Tragedy in Doha -- What Next?

As I stood at the vigil thinking about the tragedy I couldn't help but recall what I said about the mall last weekend:

Friday there was a dust storm so no wandering around outdoors. I did some errands and then decided for exercise to wander around Villaggio Mall. I know, I know, Villaggio Mall on a weekend night is a nightmare of crowds and no parking. Not sure what I was thinking, maybe because it was five o'clock I figured I would get there before most of the crowd. Wrong!

The Villaggio fire was an awful, terrible tragedy -- but it also could have been even worse. Had it been the weekend, or later in the day when the amusement park would have been operating, it’s possible that dozens could have died.

A couple of months ago there was an electrical fire at City Centre Mall that even now has kept one of its food courts closed. Today there have been reports of two small fires at some schools. What next? Do we wait until there is a fire at a 40-storey skyscraper in West Bay!? Or at a hotel? Or a hospital?

His Highness the Emir has ordered an investigation into the Villaggio fire and wants a report within a week. It is my sincerest hope that the report looks beyond the direct causes or issues to uncover the broader problems. It is not enough to just conclude that fire alarms or some wiring or sprinkler systems or whatever didn’t work. How did it get that way? Why did mall management or government inspectors not spot the problems? If the fire was caused by wiring what expertise did the people have who installed it? Were any laws circumvented? Who gave approval for a nursery that apparently didn't have an independent emergency exit?

And how much do these same issues affect every other building here?

I do have faith that His Highness will enact significant changes. Some people in Qatar may scoff, noting their belief about how Qataris with influence and power don't have to follow the rules, but I honestly do not think that is usually the case. The inspectors who review grocery stores and restaurants have temporarily shut down offenders, including sections of large supermarkets. You can't tell me that a supermarket does not have a powerful and influential Qatari owner, yet the inspectors will close it all the same. That same determination can be brought to bear to deal with whatever issues the Villaggio report uncovers.

Something does need to change. If it doesn't I fear I will be attending another vigil someday.

Vigil for the victims of the Villaggio Fire

I was at the vigil today at Aspire Park.

For updates about the fire and the aftermath I recommend following http://dohanews.co/ if you aren't already.

Tragedy at Villaggio

Man, is it ever tragic. One day I'm blogging about the crazy crowds at Villaggio Mall and the next there was a huge fire at the mall.

A spokesman for the Government announced at a news conference tonight that the fire started near the nursery in the center of the mall. 19 people are confirmed dead so far -- including 13 children!

A number of vigils and church services will be held tomorrow. I will going to one of them.

I don't know what else I can say. :(

A Weekend in Doha

This weekend I got up to a bunch of little things here and there. I decided to check out the Cityscape-Doha exhibition to see what was up and coming in the world the Doha construction. Cityscape is a construction/developer exhibition that takes place in major Arabian cities throughout the year (I think Cityscape Dubai is the biggest one).

I went hoping to see proposals for new projects but instead saw projects that I knew about and that were already under construction: Barwa City, Al Waab City(pic 1), the Pearl, Doha Festival City(pic 2), and the Al Gharaffa Mall(pic 3).

Nothing really new, there wasn't even a display on the Lusail project or the Metro. A bit disappointing. There were of course other developers selling property in other countries like Oman, the UK, or Jordan but I didn't stop to look at any of those.

Since I wasn't there as long as I thought I would be I went from Cityscape to nearby Katara to have a quick wander around and see how it was coming along.

I walked along the shore and around the nearby buildings and happened to wander by a photography exhibition so I popped in to take a look. There were some fantastic photos of the Hajj pilgrimage that I really liked. Afterwards I stopped for a chapatti and karak before heading home.

Friday there was a dust storm so no wandering around outdoors. I did some errands and then decided for exercise to wander around Villagio Mall. I know, I know, Villagio Mall on a weekend night is a nightmare of crowds and no parking. Not sure what I was thinking, maybe because it was five o'clock I figured I would get there before most of the crowd. Wrong! Luckily just as I got in the parking lot a car left so I got a parking spot right away. I did three laps of the mall and had a coffee, as well as a low-cal dinner, before heading back.

I don't know what I'm going to do for exercise in the summer. Walking on a treadmill is really boring but trying to get to a mall is a real pain now. Qatar's population has almost doubled since I arrived here six years ago so parking is a nightmare and the malls are always heaving with people.

Saturday I wandered around trying to find a battery for my camera. Thanks to directions from a guy working the from the camera section of the department store I finally found the service center only to find it was closed for the weekend. It wasn't a total loss because my favorite breakfast place, J&G Sandwich Cellar, wasn't too far away so I went there for poached eggs on toast. Read in the newspaper there was Saluki racing the other day. Wish I'd known about that beforehand -- I'd have definitely gone.

Met up with a couple of buddies later and spent the evening at Souq Waqif. I'm pretty much a regular there now. Some of the waiters who stand out in front of the restaurants wave to me as I walk by.

Unfortunately it's so hot out now so it becomes a bit draining to wander around. Guess it'll be like this for the next five months so just got to put up with it.

Qatari Etiquette – random encounters

As you know Arab culture tends to segregate men and women, especially in the Arabian Peninsula. I have a few Qatari friends who are married and to date I have never seen their wives, not even a picture of them. In Qatari culture men simply do not try to interact with ladies (except relatives and spouses of course) and it is considered a bit impolite for a man to even ask about someone's wife. I've always known this so I’ve never been bothered about it.

The other day some of us were out at lunch. We were talking about summer and how everyone would be going to the malls to escape the heat and I realized that there would be a good chance I would randomly encounter my friends with their families at the mall.

So I asked, what is acceptable practice when by chance I see you at the mall and you are with your wife?

Responses were mixed but all agreed you leave them alone -- never go up to the guy and say “hi” like you would in the West.

The disagreement came in whether you even briefly wave “hi” or give some other kind of acknowledgment as you pass. Some said that would be okay but others said don't even do that! Just ignore them and walk on.

One Qatari told me about a time he saw a friend at a mall and went up to say hi, not realizing that the man's wife was a bit further down the aisle. As soon as he noticed he immediately said goodbye and left. I think the conversation went something like this, “Hi, how are you doing .... well, see you later.” Going up to chat with a friend of yours when he is with his wife is a faux pas in Qatari society.

Besides, as someone pointed out, nowadays with phone technology you can just send a text rather than acknowledging him. He can send a text back later if he wishes. Fair enough I suppose.

[May 31 update: I spoke to two Qatari ladies who work in the office and it turns out that the rule only applies to men. If you're a woman and at the mall and you see a Qatari lady you know with her husband it's fine for you to go up and say hi to her.]

A Brief History of Qur'an Calligraphy

On Wednesday I attended a lecture at the Museum of Islamic Art on calligraphy in early Qur’ans. It turned out to be very good lecture and enlightened me as to the background of some of the calligraphic styles in the Qur'an pages on display in the Museum.

In order to share it with you I decided on Friday to go to the Museum to take some photos of the exhibits for this blog post -- it won't make much sense without pictures!

The earliest writings were a hajiri script, essentially handwriting:

This was followed shortly thereafter by a formalized style, a block text called “kufic”.

Kufic represented the first Qur’an calligraphy to start to have a formalized artistic style, where the writing became art in-and-of itself. Kufic would dominate the calligraphy of the Qur’an for the next 300 years, becoming more and more artistic, to the point where in some cases a page would only contain about a dozen or so words.

This made for some very big Qur’ans. Which meant reading them became more difficult. The largest of these Qur'ans was in Samarkand. Check out the size of the stone lecturn:

Anyway, compare kufic with the style typically used in a modern Qur’an:

Does something seem to be missing in the kufic text? A lot of dots and slash marks and little symbols around the words.

Apparently in kufic script the scribes only used the dots if it would be ambiguous what letter it was, if it was clear from the sentence what word it must be than they did not bother putting dots with the letters. This must've been confusing, for example the difference between the letters ‘h’, ‘j’ and ‘kh’ is whether there is a dot and its position (if there is no dot then it's an ‘h’)

The other slashes and symbols are used to indicate the short vowels, but writing out those vowels was not used until later. The speaker said it developed around the 10th century during the Abbassid Caliphate but another wiki article says it occurred earlier, with the development of the first Arabic dictionary.

Kufic was likely used in the first Qur’ans but it is difficult to determine. The Prophet Mohammed died in 632 A.D. and the first “official” Qur’ans, the Uthman Qur’ans, were compiled by the third caliph Uthman during his reign from 644-656 A.D. and copies were distributed to major cities throughout the Islamic empire. There's some debate as to whether any of the original Uthman Qur’ans survive. The oldest Qur’ans are believed to be the Topkapi Qur’an and the Samarkand Qur’an. Both claim to be from the original compilation of Uthman, and are in kufic script, but there is some debate as to whether or not they were written shortly afterward. Unfortunately Caliph Uthman ordered all previous writings of the Qur’an destroyed (so that there would be no textual conflicts with the one he compiled), and carbon dating will give an error of +/- 30 to 40 years, so there is no easy way to determine if kufic was definitely used in the first Uthman Qur’ans.

It is known that a large kufic inscription was included in the Dome of the Rock, which was built from 688-691 A.D., so kufic was definitely used before that.

But then in the 10th century Abbasids decided to use a script called Muhaqqaq, which quickly became the standard in the East

As you can see it has curve and flow to it similar to modern Arabic. Calligraphy quickly moved away from the “blockiness” of kufic into calligraphy styles with flowing lines. From there other styles developed:


Rayhani

Maghribi, used in Morocco and Spain by the Ummayyeds

Eventually developing into a more modern style, such as from this 17th century Chinese Qur’an:

I believe that over the centuries there have been over a dozen different styles of Qur’an calligraphy, though the lecture mostly touched on the earliest.

All-in-all one of the more interesting lectures I’d been to at the Museum.


[July 2013 update: I went to another museum exhibit on Qur'an Calligraphy, click here to read more.]

A Strange Ad

I was flipping through the local paper this morning and spotted this ad in the classifieds:

A Businessman is in need of a Russian or Ukrainian Female Secretary or Personal Assistant, 25 to 33 years old. Fluent in English, willing to be based in Malaysia and travel in different Asian countries. Send your resume with photo to: . . . . .

Must be female, late 20s, and provide a photo with your resume? *shakes head* Could you even get away with an ad like this in North America anymore?

Maybe I'm being too Politically Correct.

Immigration Policy and Economic Migration

As most of you know Qatar has a strict immigration policy. Only citizens from a few countries, such as the GCC, can enter Qatar without a visa. And citizens of another 33 countries (pretty much the Western nations), can get a tourist visa on arrival. Everyone else needs to apply for a visa in advance and to get a work-visa/residence-permit you have to be sponsored by an employer. For a married couple the family can be sponsored by the person who has the residence permit but only if they earn above a certain level of income every month (I think QAR 10000 but I'm not 100% on that). If you lose your residence permit because you’ve lost your job you and everyone you're sponsoring have to leave the country. Also, there is pretty much no chance you'll ever become a citizen, no matter how long you've lived here.

It seems pretty strict but I'm not sure what choice Qatar has. It has the highest GDP per capita in the world and is close to India, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and a number of other countries with large populations and issues with poverty. If Qatar wasn't so strict then hundreds of thousands of economic migrants would flood the country.

This got me thinking about poverty in other parts of the world and the rationales people come up with to explain it. Everyone points to Africa wondering why it continues to be mired in poverty despite its natural resources and aid from other countries. Similar things tend to be discussed about Central and South America, and some parts of Asia. People mention things like the possible after-effects of colonialism, or whether it's due to "cultural differences" compared to more successful countries, and a smattering of others have more racist views (“those” people will always have problems, they tend not to work hard, etc.). I remember an article a long time ago that pointed out that in the 1950s Kenya had a higher GDP per capita than South Korea, and now people ask why South Korea went on to be more successful than Kenya, implying cultural differences or work ethic may have been the key factor.

So when I looked at the countries we see as successful (i.e. “the West”, even though countries like Japan and South Korea are usually placed in this group) I noticed a trend that may also help explain part of their success -- isolation from massive economic migration when they were developing.

Part of the problem with aid to poor nations is that population growth and economic migration might swamp the initial benefit, essentially a macro version of "tragedy of the commons”. For example (on a small scale), if an aid group builds a well for a village of 500 people, but other nearby villages don't have clean water, then it is likely that people from the outlying villages, or migrants from farther away going to the area, will stay at the village with the well instead of the other villages. In a short period of time a well for 500 people might now be used by thousands of people. 10 years after the well was dug there is another appeal from the aid group for money to dig more wells because there's not enough clean water supplied by the first well for everyone. The initial improvement gained by the original 500 villagers is now depleted by the increase in people and so everyone is no better off than they were before.

On a macro-scale when a nation starts to become more prosperous it becomes a magnet for those who are less fortunate, who migrate to the country to try to improve their lives. We see this all the time now as illegal immigrants try to access Europe and North America. But when the “developed” nations were starting to grow and prosper it happened to coincide with circumstances that blocked being swamped by economic migration:

United States [early 20th century] – only one border for land migration by illegal immigrants (Mexico), a level of geographic isolation because of the desert between Mexico and the US, and the US was easily vast enough to absorb the migrants that did come.

Canada [anytime] -- surrounded by the United States, easier to reach the US and illegal migrants stopped in the US once they got there.

Australia and New Zealand [early 20th century] -- geographically isolated so difficult to reach

Japan [late 20th century] -- unique language, neighboring countries had tightly controlled borders preventing people from leaving (China, North Korea, Russia)

South Korea [late 20th century] -- neighboring countries had tightly controlled borders preventing people from leaving (China, North Korea, Russia)

South Africa [20th century] -- strict controls against economic migrants (the apartheid system)

Europe [19th century] -- fast modes of transportation from non-European countries had not really been developed. Prejudice against non-whites and geographically a challenge for an economic migrant to reach a country where he knows the language (if you think about it, with perhaps the exceptions of Algeria/Tunisia, countries in Africa close to Europe don't speak the language of the European country at the other side of the Mediterranean. England would've been too far for someone in Africa trekking by land.) The Sahara Desert also prevented a lot of migration.

Even within Europe I think language and cultural differences prevented a lot of cross-country migration. While the educated elite may have traveled around a lot I don't think poor farmers in Prussia were emigrating in droves to Paris or London, or thousands of Danes were sneaking into Italy for work.

Europe [post WWII] -- the Iron Curtain prevented migrants reaching Western Europe, with the exception of Africans, and for Africans the issues of prejudice, language and the Sahara Desert were still there (again I think Algeria/Tunisia were exceptions but France was large enough to absorb migration from there).

Hong Kong [20th century] – only one neighboring country, which had tightly controlled borders preventing people from leaving (China).


Now compare that to other countries that maybe 50 or 60 years ago had been highly regarded as eventually becoming wealthy, such as Kenya, Ivory Coast or Argentina. Easier to reach geographically for migrants and in many cases little to no challenge with language. Millions of economic migrants could pour into these countries the moment these countries started to be prosperous, causing a macro-scale tragedy of the commons and impeding the development (though it was less so with Argentina, perhaps due to its size and being on the southern edge of the continent). This will make it difficult for countries in these areas to be able to develop and improve without getting swamped by migrants seeking a better life as well. If Columbia opens a new mine, thousands of Peruvians will probably head over looking for work. Nigeria has lots of oil -- but also more than 100 million people, including lots of migration from nearby countries. Bolivians continue to go into Argentina and Brazil for work, and if things settle in South Sudan how long before people from Ethiopia or Chad head in to find opportunity amongst the oilfields? How many would head to Qatar if they could?

Now I find some aspects of this hypothesis disturbing as it would be supportive of a country implementing very strict border controls and immigration laws in order to allow the country to grow economically. Would South Africa have maintained its level of prosperity without the apartheid regime? Could Western Europe have maintained growth without the protection of the Iron Curtain? What if it'd been easier in the early 20th century for people in Central America to reach the US? It's an interesting thought experiment. I don't think Qatar has any choice but to continue with its strict policy.

Now strict immigration laws or border controls are of course not the only factor to becoming “developed” but I definitely see some correlation. It would be interesting to see how extensively this has been studied by sociologists or other academics.

Marriage tips from FANAR

So I received this text that FANAR was having a lecture Thursday night on “How to Be Happily Married”. I figured it would be interesting enough and since FANAR is close to Souq Waqif it will be easy to make an evening of it. My friend Murat decided to come along, he is a married Muslim so figured it might be of interest to him as well. We went to the souq and had dinner at Damasca before moseying over to the lecture.

The lecture took place in the main auditorium and there was around 100 men there (ladies sat on the level above so I've no idea how many were there). The speaker was a petroleum engineer for one of the oil companies who in his spare time gives lectures on Islamic topics or holds classes on Islam for children. He was not an Islamic scholar though, which became a bit of a problem during the Q&A as he could not provide comments on matters of religious fatwas, those can only be given by an imam.

Anyway I found out that this was first in a series of four lectures, spending 45 minutes on the types of things one should look for in a marriage partner. Not surprisingly Islamic devoutness was a key consideration and was the focus of much of the discussion.

During the Q&A one lady had a question about whether a man could have a secret second marriage (i.e. marry a second wife but not tell the first one). The speaker was unable to give a response on this as it was more an issue of fatwa but two people in the crowd had their opinion and so when it was their turn to ask a question instead tried to answer the lady’s question. Both believed the answer was no, you can't keep that secret. One even said that you need the permission of the first wife to marry again but something in the back of my mind was telling me that's not correct. A bit of Googling later and the general consensus is that you do not need her permission to marry again:


I also found a video by a scholar I met previously, Dr. Zakir Naik, who states that while it would be preferable permission from the first wife is not a requirement, however informing the first wife is a requirement. (For my meeting with Dr. Naik: Part 1, Part 2)

Finally, there was a question from a Qatari gentleman about how one should assess someone's devoutness to Islam. Apparently there was a potential suitor for his sister and he wanted views on how thorough of an assessment one needs to make. The speaker was of the view that one needs to go a little deeper than simply determining whether the man prays five times a day and goes to the mosque on Friday. Having discussions with his associates or other family members should help determine whether he is a good Muslim. I know this type of "due diligence" is typical in Qatar when Qataris are assessing potential spouses.

The lecture ended and Murat & I went back to the souq to get a juice and chat. Murat joked that his wife said she would accept him having another wife if their two friends A & B got married again. The joke was that they both knew if either of those guys got a second wife their first wife would probably kill them. ;-)

Overall the lecture was okay but I didn't learn a lot. If I'm around for any of the other lectures I'll probably stop by. One of the topics will be how to be a good husband in Islam, which may have some of that detail that us Westerners are always interested in when we wonder about how Islamic marriages work.