A quick trip to England

I was away in England for four days visiting a friend and picking up a few things. Weather was pleasant, did a bit of shopping, did a nice londonwalk tour of the Strand, hit a bunch of pubs, and even went to Stamford Bridge (no, there wasn't a game going on at the time).

My friend came up with an excellent idea, spend a day visiting Oxford. I've never really been outside of London so it sounded like a great idea.

Unfortunately as we were leaving an emergency came up and my friend had to leave but I decided to continue on, if only to get out of his hair for a day so he could deal with things in peace. There is an excellent bus service called OxfordTube that runs buses 24 hours a day between various places in London and Oxford. Cost about 16 pounds round-trip which isn't bad given that it's about an hour-and-a half to two-hour trip each way.

Oxford was really nice, a lot of old historic buildings surrounded by a town with lots of shops and services. First order of business, get the breakfast my friend was planning to introduce me to:






An Irish fry, from an Irish bar and restaurant in the city.

Yes, this breakfast is just -- wrong. Fried food and lots of it, and potato bread. And yes, that's a beer (it was actually a little after 12 so it wasn't technically breakfast). My mother's cringing right now as she looks at the photo :-)

When I was younger my family and I would have a similar breakfast on Sunday, which we referred to as an Ulster Fry, and was much like what I got at the restaurant. The thing that really made it remind me of those breakfasts at home was the potato bread (in the photo hidden under the eggs), I can't recall eating potato bread at any other time back home except with a Fry.

I believe that my Mom, who works in the health profession, eventually stopped the Ulster Fry at home just due to how unhealthy it was but it was nice to have one for old times sake.

After that huge meal I wandered around to take a look at a lot of the old buildings and then lucked out and happened by a tourist office just as they were having a walking tour. I got one of the last places and off we went to see a couple of the major buildings, including some of the original university areas and the exam hall, followed by a tour of one of the colleges.

Now Oxford has a method of teaching its students that is very different from how universities are run in North America. Oxford is divided into a number of colleges, I believe about 38, and you apply to enter one of the colleges. At the college you will be given residence with the other students (at least during the first year, possibly longer), eat in the college dining hall, participate on the college teams and so forth. But don't think of this college in terms of a North American one -- each college tends to have a few hundred students. You will also be assigned a tutor (or maybe tutors?) whom you will meet with weekly to discuss subjects in your field of study and provide him with essays that you will read out to him. This forms the vast majority of your homework. They do have lectures at the University and you will usually attend certain ones based on the recommendation of your tutor, but most of the work you do is through your discussions and essays for the tutor. My friend also told me (as he went to Oxford) that you become very specialized in your field of study -- there are few if any electives, your time is spent studying your field. At the end of each year you write exams.

Now these colleges are not split up by field of study, colleges have a wide variety of tutors available for most subjects so your colleagues in your college will be from a wide range of fields. You might be studying English but the person who stays next to you might be studying music, history, science, or whatever.

Each college has a lot of autonomy so has different traditions, rules, and so forth. Some colleges allow tourists to visit it at certain times for a fee, other colleges never allow tourists (such as the college Bill Clinton attended). Our tour group got to visit Queen’s College, which only allows in tourists from this particular tour, and only 19 at a time. We got to see the grounds, the dining hall, the garden of the Dean, and its chapel, all of which were centuries-old, while the tour guide told us about the specific traditions and things that go on in this college. We were also shown the outside of some other colleges, such as Oriel (sp?) College, where Cecil Rhodes (of the Rhodes scholarships) studied. It was a great tour. I also liked how the guide pointed out that, for the benefit of Harry Potter fans since some parts of the films were shot in Oxford, that Harry Potter was fictional and doesn't really exist! Twice though he did point out where certain scenes in whatever Potter film were shot. Not surprisingly Harry Potter fans love Oxford and I think you can get specific Harry Potter-based tours.

Both J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (Narnia) were at Oxford and our tour showed us a door that the tour guide claimed inspired the doorway in The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. I tried a brief Google search it but didn't really come up with much so I'm still not sure about the claim, the door seemed pretty new and looked designed to inspire mythical figures.

I also learned that Rhodes scholarships, which per Mr. Rhodes Trust are given to citizens of the Commonwealth plus the United States and Germany (though Germany fell off the list twice around the war years). I always wondered about that as I thought it was always just for Commonwealth citizens so how did Bill Clinton get one?

I also learnt that former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke holds a beer drinking record at Oxford.

I kind of wish I could've gone to Oxford as the system they have their sounds interesting but intensive. Let's face it if you are having discussions with a tutor every week he will quickly figure out if you're slacking off.

Museum lectures

So I forgot to mention that the Museum of Islamic Art has started their lecture series again. This time they're having a series of five lectures each focusing on a different "Great Arab Thinker". The first one was two weeks ago and was about a scholar from the 11th century named Abu Rayhan Biruni. Wiki entry here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Rayhan_Biruni

He was born in Uzbekistan but the lecturer noted he was likely of Persian descent. He wrote a ton of books on a wide variety of subjects including astronomy, geology, sociology, and so forth. Although not many of his works survive they were widely read by scholars in the Islamic world at the time and he was very influential in the works of later scholars.


One of his best-known works was a book about India where he listened and learned about why Hindus did not get along with outsiders and attempted to describe their culture and beliefs in an objective way, which was groundbreaking in its time. The professor giving the lecture focused a lot on this work and its picture of Indian society at the time. It is considered one of the first anthropological studies of another culture.

When it came time for the question-and-answer I asked whether his works had been widely distributed in the West during the Middle Ages. I asked because I had not heard of him before whereas many Islamic scholars of the time such as Avicenna, Geber, and Maimonides had numerous of their works translated into Latin and widely distributed throughout Europe. The professor replied that he was not well-known at the time although many later works by Islamic scholars are clearly influenced by him though work directly written by him did not generally reach Europe. The professor then noted that, surprisingly, it was not until around the 18th century that Europeans became interested in Biruni and his writings, more specifically British colonialists. Apparently the British were starting to have significant influence in India and did not know much about Indian culture. Attempts to find writings about Indian culture, in a language that the British scholars could translate, turned up Biruni’s extensive writings on India -- from there his book became widely read in Britain in the 19th century as a definitive work on India. This despite the fact that the book had been written over 800 years earlier.

Biruni is still widely regarded throughout Central Asia and other parts of the Islamic world. Statues, conferences dedicated to his work, and other tributes are found in many countries such as Iran and Pakistan.

One of the contentious issues that came up during the lecture was that the Museum of Islamic art was doing a series on "Great Arab Thinkers" but as one person in the audience pointed out Biruni was an Uzbek of Persian origin and thus was not an Arab (Persians are not, and have never been, Arabs. I suspect many Persians get a little miffed at being called Arabs by unknowing Westerners). The lecturer pointed out that, yes, Biruni was not born in Arabia, and was not of Arab ancestry, but the series considered him a great Arab thinker because all of his works were written in Arabic which was a scientific language of the day. The lecturer noted that Biruni would never have had Arabic as his main language, he would have spoken Uzbek at home and probably Persian when dealing with people from other regions, yet he wrote all of his scholarly works in Arabic. There was a bit of chat about whether this was an attempt for the Arab world to claim a Persian scholar but given that the lecturer was American I don't think it was his intent to downplay Biruni’s real heritage and somehow try to make him an Arab.

Anyway I enjoyed the lecture because while I have heard of many scholars and studied a couple of them, such as Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), I learned about a very prolific scholar from the Islamic Golden Age that I had never heard of before.

The next lecture is Wednesday night, I will be there.

An arabic gift

When I got back to Canada a Qatari friend of mine had a gift for me. Here it is:









A set of a prayer beads known as a misbaha (pronounced mis-ba-(h)a, you barely say the h), though in some Arabic speaking countries it might be known as a ‘subha’.

Misbaha are prayer beads used for a ritual called ‘dhikr’ where the various names of God are spoken as part of a prayer. Traditionally you say the names 99 times so the misbaha assists in counting, you can slide your finger across the bead while you say the names. This means that a misbaha will have a number of beads to make counting to 99 easier, my misbaha has 33 beads, with two tiny beads at the end of each 11th bead. Many misbaha are longer and can contain 66 or even 99 beads.

It is common for misbaha to be carried by Arab men in the Gulf, and most will have one in their pocket or hanging from their hand. It is not solely for use in prayer but appears to be somewhat of an accessory, many times you will see an Arab man nonchalantly rubbing his fingers along it while thinking, chatting with friends, or even while talking on the phone.

There is no set rules for what a misbaha has to be made of. The beads can be made of plastic, stone, wood, or any other material. Amber appears to be a preferred material but I do not know if that is historical or a recent fashion. Stores that sell them tend to have a wide variety including turquoise and other minerals. I have seen misbaha of all sorts of colors.

I thought it was really nice of my friend to buy me one of these. I've been keeping it in my pocket and occasionally rubbing the beads. Maybe it will help me stop biting my nails.

Qatar updates

Okay, it has been a busy week.

First, I would just like to mention this local news article on a recent Science Camp for children.

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=387635&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

I sometimes get concerned that with Western media focus on places like Iraq and Afghanistan, or showing pictures of whatever fundamentalists are burning a flag this week, that people don't realize that much of the Islamic world is not like that and are generally supportive of science and scientific advancement. Qatar has spent a lot of money on universities, education, and even has a Qatar Scientific Club, who hosted the camp.

Don't get me wrong, Qatar has a long way to go. Per the 2006 PISA test Qatar was 56th out of 57 countries in science and math. Hopefully they will improve on the 2009 test. At a recent skeptics meet-up I was talking to a teacher and he told me that he did find the educational standards worrisome. Apparently some Qataris are graduating from high school not even being able to multiply single digits. Again, I hope there'll be some improvement on the 2009 PISA test results though I do not expect a dramatic improvement -- reforms in an educational system take many years to manifest in improvements in Students.

Speaking of PISA, did anyone watch President Obama’s recent discussions on education in America?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/39378576/site/todayshow/ns/today-parenting

here's a key excerpt:
“My administration is announcing that we are going to specifically focus on training 10,000 new math and science teachers," he said. "We have to boost performance in that area. We used to rank at the top; we are now 21st in science, 25th in math. That is a sign of long-term decline that has to be reversed.”
So where did the 21st and 25th came from? I thought it came from the PISA 2006 test results but that would mean Obama is only counting the OECD countries -- the US results are even worse when you throw in non-OECD countries in the mix:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/13/39725224.pdf


Secondly, lectures have started up again at the Museum of Islamic Art, the next one is this Wednesday at 6:30 PM. Anyone who is interested should contact the Museum for details. I enjoyed the lectures they put on last year.


Thirdly, the Qatar Natural History Group is back for another season of lectures and field trips. The first lecture is on Wednesday, October 6, see their website for more details http://www.qnhg.org/


Lastly, I received a great gift from a Qatari friend this week, but I'll talk more about that next post.

I'm back!

I'm back from my vacation in Canada. Had a great time of course, I was there for my sister's wedding and everything went great, neither of them ran away or anything ;-) . I won't go into the details as I'm not sure if my sister wants details of her wedding splashed across the Internet.

I decided instead of going to Canada via Europe I would go through the United States, Houston in this case. This meant flying direct from Doha to Houston – a 15-hour flight. Having gone there and back I will stick to flying through Europe from now on. A 15 hour flight is just too much. Not that there is anything wrong with the flight itself, it was just too long. That, and going through US immigration is a pain.

I also learned that North American airlines cannot hold a candle to Qatar Airways. I flew 4 1/2 hours from Houston to Vancouver on Continental Airlines and only got a thing of peanuts, no pillow, and no blanket. To access all of the entertainment channels cost six dollars. On Qatar Airways you get meals, free alcohol, great entertainment system (on the newer planes at least), pillows, and blankets. No paying extra for anything. Food is decent too.

Spent some time in Vancouver before heading to the Okanagan Valley for the wedding. I had not been to the Valley for probably eight years and while there had been some changes a lot of the old hangouts and buildings were still there. The Valley has really gone towards winemaking in a big way and there were a lot of vineyards and wineries now. It was cooler than I remembered as well and we only really had one day that we could go to the beach. Most of my friends from high school and college now live in Vancouver so I spent time in Vancouver meeting up with them, I'm not sure if I have any old friends who live in the valley anymore. Growing up we always looked forward to moving to the big city and I guess we all did. I of course later moved on to see the wide world.

I do miss Vancouver but the housing prices there are frightening. A studio apartment in the city is at least $300,000, a one bedroom $400,000. I'm not sure who can afford prices like that, wages are not all that high in Canada. I guess this is why my sister and her husband are still renting. Another buddy of mine is married with two kids and he rents as well, no one can afford the down payment or a mortgage on a reasonably sized place anymore.

Other than the wedding spent my days hanging out with family and friends and eating lots of tasty food, including perogies, and a wide variety of desserts. Definitely gained some weight, I'm now back to the gym to try to work it off. With my friends I was playing a lot of boardgames like Battlestar Galactica and Railroad Tycoon. I'm not sure why boardgames like that haven't caught on here in Qatar. Given that Qataris don't generally go to bars but like to sit around with friends drinking coffee I would have thought boardgames would be a popular pastime.

I also saw a BC Lions game, thanks to my sister's neighbor who had some tickets. Went with her boyfriend and a couple of other guys. The stadium they normally play at, BC Place Stadium, is getting a new roof so they were playing at Empire Stadium, an open-air stadium. Despite the fact that it's open air you are not allowed to smoke there, which I thought was a little weird (not that I smoke anyway). I guess BC is really cracking down on smoking when you are not allowed to smoke outdoors in some places. The Lions won by the way, which was a pleasant surprise given that they were something like 2-7 going into the game.

I've also decided to get an e-book reader. Have my heart set on the new Sony but if I get a chance to see the new Kindle I’ll give it a looksee before deciding. Hope to have it in the next couple of weeks.

Later.

Ramadan . . . the finale.

So I am leaving for Canada. While Ramadan is 29-30 days for me it’s ending after 16. Fasting was challenging, but not as hard as I thought it would be. You really do get used to it, just like my Muslim friends said. And it was nice to set my time more like the rest of Qatar, enjoy the late-night festivities, and to have iftar with my friends. Here’s some pictures to recap:








a typical Sohour meal (if you look closely you can read the type of dates from the package.







Iftar at the Cigale hotel











An iranian restaurant in the Souq



The lecture of Dr. Zakir Naik




Iftar at an Iraqi restaurant



The "Jetsons" mosque where I witnessed the evening prayer





Chillin out with a shisha at the W Hotel



And iftar at a Syrian restaurant.


It was a cool expereince.


I'll try to post from Canada while I'm there. See you soon.

Ramadan continued...

So a few days ago I met some friends at a Syrian restaurant for Iftar. We chose this restaurant specifically because it was close to a particular mosque. This one. I always liked the design of this mosque and refer to it as “The Jetson mosque” because its architecture reminds me somewhat of that old cartoon.

The mosque has an English-speaking imam by the name of Bilal Philips and is one of two mosques where lectures are given in English (the other one being the Islamic cultural Center, where I went for Friday prayers a few months back). We weren't sure when talks are normally given so we guessed that there would be one after the Isha prayer [I may have the name of this prayer wrong] around 8pm. So after dinner an Egyptian friend and I went to the mosque. We got there a little bit early so we sat down on the carpet and read the Qur’an until it was time for the prayer. The mosque had a number of Qur’ans available in various languages so I was able to grab an English copy and continue reading where I left off at home.

As an aside, Bilal Philips is a Canadian who converted to Islam sometime in the 70s, and much like Dr. Zakir Naik, is also banned from the UK and probably a couple of other countries as well. Again, I haven't had time to look up exactly what's going on there, but a couple years back I did attend one of his talks on the Hajj pilgrimage (search my blog for “Hajj” and you'll find it) and I recall that he was critical of Muslims who have musical ring tones on their cell phones. I guess he comes from a school of Islam that considers music something best avoided. The feeling is not that uncommon, one of my Qatari friends is likewise the same about music and does not listen to it (but most do).

My friend asked one of the people working at the mosque if there was going to be a speech and unfortunately we found out that the speech was at 6pm, around Iftar, so we had missed it. We hung around for a while longer though so that my friend could do the Isha prayer. After about 15 minutes prayer time was called so I grabbed the Qur’an I was reading and went to the back so as not to disturb anyone. The prayer started and more people kept coming into the mosque -- when one saw I was reading the Qur’an on the floor he grabbed a lectern and gave it to me so that I could put the book on it. Oops, sorry about that. Guess you shouldn't read the Qur’an on the floor if there are lecterns nearby.

Anyway the prayer was finished and my friend and I left. Unfortunately I don't have any more time this Ramadan to attend one of the talks, maybe next year.

As for the fasting it is still going fine. I will confess to one slip, one morning I got up for work and was absolutely parched, which did not bode well since the day had just begun. I didn't want to spend the day with a headache from dehydration or something so I had a glass of water before going to the office. Only happened once though.

Happy Birthday Karis!

As I've been out at these iftars and so forth I did not have time to wish my niece a Happy Birthday on my blog, something I’ve always done. I'm really sorry about that, and I realize I'm a few days late. The good news is I'm going to Canada in a few days so I will be able to see her. She’ll get an extra hug when I'm there.

Ramadan updates

I wound up having to change my Sohour meal. Here's what I was having before:






I was eating dates, dried fruit and some sweetened cereal. The dried fruit seems to be coated in sugar so the meal just wound up being way too sweet. Everything was sweet or had sugar on it. Not what I wanted to eat at 3am.



So I switched it up a bit:





This has been working out better, something solid to go with the dates. Nuts, cheese, and a bit of bread (not shown). Settles a bit better in the stomach.

Dr. Zakir Naik

I forgot to mention that Dr. Zakir Naik has gotten himself into a bit of trouble lately and has been refused entry into the UK. I don't recall the entire story but it has to do with some things that he said at the meeting that implies supporting extremists etc. etc.

Dr Zakir has numerous videos on YouTube (including the recent speech that he gave in Doha) including ones refuting the UK allegations. Just do a search for “Zakir Naik”. The UK ban was only a few weeks ago so a Google search for his name should turn up some UK newspaper articles. I can see why he has talks about Western media.


Supporter of extremism or someone quoted out of context? You be the judge.

Ramadan, Day 9

Sorry for the breakdown in posting btw, I had a computer malfunction that took a few days to sort out.

I can now see why despite the fasting a lot of people actually gain weight during Ramadan. Traditionally you should break the fast with friends or family so of course I have been doing so for most days. That means big meals in restaurants and buffets at hotels. Almost every night I'm going out to eat somewhere with people, and next week I have three different hotel buffets I'm attending as part of invitations from the office and firms that I work with. Today it was a buffet at a Japanese restaurant with great sushi. Earlier today some of my Muslim friends found that a little odd, "You shouldn't have sushi for Iftar!”. Why not? I realize that perhaps sushi isn't exactly “traditional” but I had Indian food on two other nights, and the three Muslims that I attended dinner with, a Kuwaiti, two Lebanese, and a Turk, didn't seem to mind either. (Sounds like there's a joke in there somewhere: a Kuwaiti, a Lebanese, a Turk and a Canadian walk into a sushi bar... ). The restaurant appeared to be full of Muslims, including a Qatari couple. I did break the fast initially with dates and laban though, supplied by the restaurant. Looks like all restaurants have dates at the ready for the commencement of Iftar.

I also learned from one of my Qatari friends that when breaking the fast you should eat an odd number of dates. Many Hadiths appear to mention that the Prophet Mohammed ate at least three dates and always an odd number. I will check my Al-Bukhari Hadiths to see if there is anything in it about how many dates to eat. (No luck finding Sawiq by the way, it appears no one breaks their fast with that.)

Another Ramadan tradition is that you should read (or have read to you) the entire Qur’an during the holy month. Many mosques have a special reading every night where the Qur’an is divided up into 29 sections and a section recited each evening -- by attending the readings each night you will have heard the entire Qur’an recited. While most read it on their own one has to remember that, not so long ago, illiteracy was high so you would have to listen to a recitation. One of my Qatari friends mentioned that his Grandmother was illiterate so listened to audio CDs of the Qur’an.

I'm getting used to the fasting now so in addition to the fasting I’ve decided to spend 30 to 45 minutes reading the Qur’an everyday. That is not enough time to get through the entire book but it gives me an opportunity to have a bit of a refresher from when I last read it about three years ago. I recently found a passage that I don't recall from before that I think explains why the Prophet Mohammed had more than four wives. Surah 33:50 indicates that he alone was exempt from some marriage rules. I always wondered about that -- by my recollection he had nine wives but Muslims are limited to four wives (and from most of the Muslim men I've spoken to one wife is plenty. “Big headache! Don’t do it!” was the advice from one Bahraini taxi driver.  )

I also have plans to visit one of the mosques that conduct prayers in English to witness the evening prayers and maybe listen to a lecture if one is held. Stay tuned.

Dr. Zakir Naik - a lecture, a question, and my shoes

Finally Dr. Naik took the stage and gave a 90 minute lecture on the media and Islam. Some highlights (I'm not quoting verbatim here and, no, I have not doublechecked to see if some of the facts he mentions are true):

• The Western media focuses on the “black sheep” in Islam and treats them as if they were conventional Muslims, implying that all Muslims must be like them. [I can't argue with that one, I have said so myself in this blog]
• The media are quick to point out when a person or group is Muslim, but if the group are not Muslims then their religion is never a focus -- you have never heard the general media refer to the IRA as a "Christian terrorist group" or “Catholic terrorist group”, or imply that their actions are somehow representative of Catholicism. [I think he has a point there - but there aren’t a lot of religious-based terrorist groups out there right now that are not Muslim. I suppose the Lord's Resistance Army comes to my mind and if I recall correctly the media does not refer to them as a Christian terrorist group either.]
• A Muslim killing a few people is big news in the West, Maoist rebels killing dozens of people is not. [Fair comment I suppose]
• One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The British would've considered George Washington to be a terrorist. [No idea about this one but the terrorist/freedom fighter argument is an old one]
• Islam really is a religion of peace and Muslims should use violence only as a last resort. Some Muslims are misguided and forget this. Regardless, the Western media loves to take quotes from the Qur’an out of context to support this violent interpretation. There are plenty of violent quotations one could get from the Bible, Hindu Scripture or any other Scripture. [Yes, but I will point out that out-of-context quoting by the West it is not just limited to Islam, quoting biologists out of context is a popular pastime for creationists, and the media love to quote politicians out of context. It is a problem though I agree.]
• The word “jihad” has been mistranslated to mean “holy war” but in truth the word means “strike” -- to strike against unfairness, poverty, wrongdoing and oppression. References to the word in the context to war can be found back in the Crusades but it was referring to the Christian attackers, not the Muslims. Unfortunately even many Muslims do not realize the word’s actual meaning. [My Qur’an says Jihad is “holy fighting in Allah’s cause”. I’ll have to take his word for it on this one]
• The West likes to paint Islam as inherently violent and state that it was spread “by the sword”. What army invaded Malaysia, China, or Indonesia? Why did the Mughul emperors not kill every non-Muslim in India? Why is there still a large population of Coptic Christians in Egypt to this day? How did significant Jewish populations live in the Middle East for centuries? How easy was it for non-Christians to live in the Christian world during the Middle Ages? What was the purpose of the Crusades? [But the spread of Islam wasn't entirely peaceful either, especially in the earlier days when it spreads throughout North Africa. That said, I'd say that from about 800 A.D. to 1600 A.D. the Islamic world was probably a lot more tolerant than the Christian West]
• Watching most news media is worse than watching pornography. Pornography is simply haram (forbidden), media actively attacks you by using misinformation to turn you from your beliefs, or manipulate you into certain actions. [He did re-emphasize that pornography is still bad and you shouldn't watch it]
• Islam does not hold a candle to Christianity in terms of its organization and ability to spread its message. India has almost 100,000,000 Muslims yet the circulation of one of the best Islamic magazines in the country is maybe 50,000 copies. Compare that to the Christian magazine Watchtower, which has a circulation of tens of millions in dozens of languages -- and the Christian group that publishes Watchtower is not even considered a mainstream group of Christianity. In the United States churches can raise millions of dollars quickly to form TV stations, publishing houses, missionary work or whatever else they need to spread their message. Dr. Naik has never heard of an Islamic group who is able to do that to the extent that many US church groups can. [I'll take his word for it]
• Muslims have to be careful about the media quoting them out of context, this has happened to Dr. Naik in many instances to try to make his words sound worse than they really were, including on TV. [Out-of-context quoting is not limited to attacking Islam]
• Muslims are not utilizing media to its fullest extent and so are at a disadvantage to the negative views portrayed in the West. [okay]

Not a whole lot I can say is flat out wrong and many of his points I have raised myself in one way or another on this blog.

Despite the heat and humidity in the tent it was still pretty much full by the time the speech ended. Some people left but they were quickly replaced by people from outside.

Then it was time for questions. A microphone was set up in the front and another one set up in the back for the ladies for people to ask questions. About 20 to 30 men immediately headed up to the microphone. However Dr. Naik had other ideas and said that he invited non-Muslims to attend this lecture and as non-Muslims are his guests he will give priority to any non-Muslim who has a question about Islam. They can immediately jump the queue and ask their questions first.

So I stood up, walked down the aisle to the microphone, and the first question of the evening came from yours truly! There were at least two TV cameras there, likely broadcasting the show on the Islamic channel "Peace TV”, which Dr. Naik does a lot of programs for. Who knew one day I'd wind up briefly on Islamic television?

My question:

In your opinion, what are the top two misconceptions the West has about Islam that it should be aware of? What are the things about Islam that the West needs to understand?

He gave a detailed answer and provided three items (I'm paraphrasing here):

1) that ultimately Islam is a religion of peace
2) that extremists should not be viewed as being representative of Islam or Muslims in general
3) that the Qur’an needs to be viewed in context and that the West should not focus on a few specific passages


He then went on to answer questions for another hour and a half, primarily from non-Muslims but then later from the Muslims in the audience.

When he left about 50+ people came forward to get pictures and (I presume since I saw a number of books) get his autograph on books he had authored.

Afterward a Pakistani colleague of mine managed to find me, he had been outside for most of it and told me about the thousands of people outside and the huge crush trying to get in. He sure was surprised to suddenly see me appear on the screens outside to ask Dr. Naik a question. He confirmed that Dr. Naik is quite well known in South Asia and is a popular scholar, appearing on many TV shows there. We chatted for a while waiting for the crowd to disperse.

So we left and sure enough my shoes were not where I had put them. My colleague helped me search for them and after a minute we managed to find one way off to the left of the door, and about five minutes of searching we found another one off to the right and around the corner of the tent (?! I don't even want to know how it wound up there, maybe George Bush walked by ;-) ). Anyway, I found my shoes! They weren't even damaged, just a few scuffs.

I got home at 1 am and figured there was no point in setting my alarm for 3 am just to have my Sohour -- I ate something right then and there and went to bed. Long day.

A Lecture by Dr. Zakir Naik

Last Friday the papers advertised an English-language lecture by Dr. Zakir Naik, an Islamic scholar from India whose talk was titled "Islam and Media: War or Peace?" It sounded like a Ramadan thing to do so I got in the car and drove out to the tent where the event was being held.

The talk was scheduled for 9pm so I got to the location at 8:20 and to my surprise it was busy. Dozens of people were walking to the location. I parked the car and made my way towards the tent.

Outside some large screens and rows of chairs have been set out in case the tent got full so people could still watch the proceedings from outside. There was also a large carpeted area in front of the entrance, where dozens of men were praying. I took my shoes off before walking on the carpet and deposited them about 10 feet away from the entrance to the tent before going inside. The entrance was already pretty crowded and there was a bit of pushing and shoving getting in.

Now when I say tent I don't mean some small enclosure, this place was like a massive hall, probably 100+ feet wide and 500+ feet long. By my rough estimate it could seat about 2000 people. Volunteers were guiding people to seats so I wound up in a seat about a third of the way back, last seat in the row. There was separate seating for women at the back of the tent.

It was hot -- dang hot. The tent had about six or seven air-conditioners running but it was nowhere near enough and the temperature in the tent was probably about 30° and humid. Granted, it was still a little cooler than outside which was in the mid-30s. Didn't matter though, everyone was sweating. Thankfully volunteers would go up and down the aisles handing out small bottles of water.

People kept pouring in and it became apparent that the place was going to fill up. Over 2000 people were showing up for this lecture?! Talks at the Museum of Islamic Art are lucky to get more than 100.

When it was getting close to capacity there was still hordes of people at the door so the volunteers started trying to get people to sit outside in the chairs but it was such a mob scene but people kept pushing their way in. Eventually volunteers managed to shut the door and about four or five of them had to press against the door due to all the people trying to get in. Occasionally the volunteers would lose and the door would burst open again and about 30 to 40 people would come in before they could shut it. People outside were yelling at pushing to get in, the volunteers were yelling that them that the hall was full, it started getting quite chaotic. Peeking out the doorway I could see a massive crush of people trying to get into the place. (I later learned that there was probably another 2000+ people outside).

I started talking to the guy next to me, who turned out to be a Muslim from Sri Lanka, who told me Dr. Zakir was very famous in South Asia. A quick glance around I realized that almost everyone in the audience was from India, Pakistan and surrounding countries. Looks like I was attending a lecture by a Muslim religious celebrity.

There was still more scuffling outside and the volunteers were still having to brace the door to keep it shut. An organizer took the microphone to tell people outside that the hall was full and to sit in the chairs outside. Eventually the police showed up to calm things down. By this point in time it was about 9:30, Dr. Zakir was not going to go on stage until everything had settled.

That's when it dawned on me . . .


My shoes were outside and only 10 feet away from the door!!



Aw man, my shoes must have been totaled! Who would have expected my shoes would have wound up in the middle of a mob of Islamic scholar devotees?!

I resigned myself to walking back to my car in my socks and sat in the sweltering tent awaiting the start of the lecture.


To be continued...

Ramadan – Days 3 & 4 – the weekend

The weekend was both eventful and uneventful. Because it was the weekend I could sleep in, which I definitely did to lessen the amount of waking hours I would be fasting. I'm still not used to waking up at 3am to have something to eat, on Friday morning I even forgot that I had a small bottle of laban on my nightstand so while I ate the dates and drank a glass of water I didn't drink the laban.

Friday during the day I worked in the office then went home and had a nap for an hour while I waited for Iftar. Had my Iftar snack at home.

It was then that I realized that pretty much everything I've been eating consisted of dates, nuts, bread, rice and maybe beans, with the exception of that Indian meal the night before. I had not eaten much in the way of vegetables. Now that I think about it, traditional Ramadan meals seem a little light on vegetables. Perhaps that's not too surprising, traditionally I don't think the Arabian Desert was awash with a wide choice of produce so vegetables would not have made up a large part of the diet.

Anyway, figured I had better eat some vegetables, so I went to the mall food court where I knew a place that did a nice pasta with vegetables (you get to pick the vegetables and they cook it there in front of you before adding it to the pasta).

Now I had read in the paper that there was a lecture (in English) that evening by a visiting Islamic scholar named Dr. Zakir Naik, and it was open to people from all religions. It started at 9pm so I decided that would be a good way to spend a Ramadan evening so I went to the lecture. To describe what happened will require another blog post so I will tell you about that later. I got home a little after 1am so rather than go to bed and then wake up at 3 I decided to just have my Sohour meal right away and then go to bed.

I woke up around 10 with a bit of an "oversleep headache" but of course I can't drink any water or anything so I got out of bed, had a shower, and went to the office to continue working. I was feeling a little bit under the weather so it was tougher fasting today than it had been previously as I really wanted to drink something. Maybe I hadn't had enough water the night before and was a bit dehydrated. I will have to remember to drink more water during the night.

I find fasting is toughest in the early afternoon. My stomach really starts acting up around 12:30, basically saying "lunchtime" and by 1:30 it really starts growling, cajoling me to hurry up and get some lunch. By about 3 my stomach has calmed down and I guess resigned itself that it's not getting any food. Of course by then my mind starts wandering a bit and my memory starts to lapse a little and I know that it is time for a nap.

Met my Kuwaiti friend and a work colleague just before Iftar so that we could go to the Souq to have Iftar at a restaurant there. An Egyptian friend of mine met up with us so the four of us broke our fast (well, three of us were fasting anyway) at an Iraqi restaurant. Much like the Indian place they supplied us with complementary dates and juice for the Iftar. Much like the Indian place I ate a lot of food; once you start eating after fasting all day it is hard to stop.

After the meal we went to our favorite Chinese massage place, also at the Souq, for foot massages. I've been getting pretty hooked on going for massages at this place and I'm probably there at a minimum once every two weeks now. I blame my Kuwaiti friend, who introduced me to the place. After that one of my buddies had to go to a small stall at the Souq to follow up on a watch he left for repair, and because of the heat we stopped to have an ice cream in an air-conditioned cafe before heading back.

Did I mention that I've also sworn off alcohol during Ramadan as well? No more nightcaps at home or meeting up with people for a beer (not that I could anyway, any place that sells alcohol is closed during Ramadan). This isn't a big step for me as I was never much of a drinker anyway, the odd G&T in the evening or a few beers at Comedy Night at the Ramada was my general drinking habit.

Well it's just after midnight so it's time to get my Sohour meal prepared on the nightstand and go to bed -- workday tomorrow.

Fasting -- day two

I forgot to mention that my attempt to wean myself off caffeine was successful. Once I started fasting I had no issues with caffeine withdrawal. Haven't had a coffee or tea until last night (which was just a couple of small cups of Arabic coffee). No headaches, no withdrawal symptoms.

The second day was as I expected a bit tougher than the first. I got to bed around midnight the night before so I was on a bit less sleep. By the afternoon I was definitely fading. I also noticed that my memory was a bit impaired, it was more difficult to remember things and I occasionally found myself having to pause to think of something like name of the restaurant I ate at a few days ago.

Got home around 3:30 but was not exhausted so surfed the net for a while before going to bed around 4:30 for an hour.

For Iftar I met up with a Kuwaiti friend of mine and his wife to have dinner at an Indian restaurant. Even though it was an Indian restaurant when we sat down they put a plate of dates on the table and gave us each glasses of lemon with mint and a big bottle of water. We were still a few minutes early so we sat at the table with this food and drink in front of us that we couldn't touch because it was not officially time yet.

Qatar does a pretty good job in trying to inform people when everyone can break the fast. At about the same time my friend’s mobile rang to tell him it was time (I think his phone service provides that if you register), the ambient music in the restaurant suddenly changed to a prayer, and in the distance there was a sound of a cannon firing (or maybe it was a firework). I think the cannon was something the Government arranged so that it creates a loud noise across the city to let everyone know they can start eating. And once again once I started eating it was difficult to stop, though I will admit it was good Indian food.

After dinner we were out and about doing some shopping and stuff. Went to a supermarket at around 10:30pm and it was absolutely packed with people buying groceries.

Was in bed about midnight and once again set my alarm for 3 am so I could snack on some dates and dried fruit and drink a glass of water. I also left a small bottle of laban on my nightstand but at 3 a.m. I completely forgot it was there so I didn't drink it. I don't even think I open my eyes while I was eating. Slept until 9:30 and once I finish this post I'll head out to work. Yep, it's the weekend but I have a ton of stuff at the office that I need to do. Hopefully this will keep me occupied so I won't be thinking about food all day.

Ramadan -- day one

Okay, 10 minutes to go before I can start eating. I have a plate of dates and a glass of water ready and I have some rice cooking for a little bit later. So how did it go?

So far not too bad, woke up at 3 am briefly to have some food, then back to bed until seven before getting up to go to work. It was a busy day so that kept me occupied and not dwelling on food or drink but I definitely was getting hungry by about 11, and by 2 I was feeling a little weak. Got home from work a little after 3:30 but didn't really feel tired enough to sleep so I surfed the net for a little bit then went to bed around 4:30 and slept for an hour. I am starving right now!

I figure the next day will be tougher because I will probably be going to bed later tonight so won't have as much sleep as I did the night before. Once I have my iftar meal I'm heading over to a friend’s place for a while.

One of my work colleagues gave me a Ramadan prayer schedule (from islamicfinder.org) which shows the various prayer times. Generally sunrise is around 3:45am and sunset meal at about 6:10pm but of course the day gets shorter the further along the month you go. By the middle of the month sunrise is at 3:52 and sunset at 5:59. I figure I'll just stick to getting up around three o'clock for a snack.

Ramadan 2010 has started!

Apparently the announcement was made this evening, Ramadan has begun.

So I will set an alarm for 3am for my predawn meal. Got my dates and figs ready, I'll have a piece of Arabic bread as well. My colleague hasn't forwarded to me a website to determine sunrise and sunset times so I guess I'll look it up on my own, and ask my colleagues tomorrow at work.

Let's see how this goes...

Fasting, part three

I asked some colleagues about “sawiq” to break the fast and they told me it was not a requirement by any means to eat sawiq, in fact traditionally one breaks your fast with dates. So I purchased a bunch of dates (three different varieties, there's a wide variety of dates here and they do have different tastes to them), some figs, and some dried fruit. I'll be sure to keep a small plate of them by my bed each evening for my pre-dawn meal.

Now the pre-dawn meal, I believe called Sohour, can range from as simple as a few dates and some water, to lavish multicourse meals. One of my colleagues typically has dates, water, and some yogurt for his meal, one of my Qatari friends will have that and some toast, and another mentioned beans as a good meal because they take longer to digest. My Qatari friend also mentioned that if he is with his family his mother will usually cook something for Sohour such as scrambled eggs. There appears to be no specific food item for Sohour, though everyone seems to have dates.

Qatar is also preparing for the holy month and the Government has incepted mandated prices for about 150 food items to ensure that there is no price-gouging. Grocery stores are required to prominently display the list so that customers can be aware of the mandated price. I saw the list the other day and it appears to be primarily basic foodstuffs (milk, yogurt, cooking oil, some types of meats like chicken, household items like tissues). Dates are not one of the mandated things -- there are so many different varieties of dates, with different prices, that there be no way for the government to mandate one price for them. Grocery stores have huge displays out piled high with dates, figs & nuts. The bakery section also has certain desserts commonly served during Ramadan. I'll try to get a picture for next blog.

As for me I'm on one cup of coffee a day now so it shouldn't be too difficult to turn the caffeine tap off in a few days. I've gotten mixed reviews about how well this will work; some have told me I will struggle while others have said that if I change my sleep schedule accordingly it shouldn't be too bad. One of my Muslim colleagues is going to send me an Internet link to a chart so that I can determine when I need to wake up in the night for my last (first?) meal. When I receive the link I'll post it here.

So far I believe this is how my workday schedule will look:

~3:00am: wake up for Sohour meal
3:15am: go back to bed
6:45am: wake up for work
7:30am: start work
2:30pm: work is done, head home
2:45pm: go to bed
~6:00pm: wake up for Iftar (breaking the fast)
6:30 – 12:30: live a life
~12:30ish: go to bed

Of course this schedule is likely to change. Waking up for Iftar will depend on whether I'm going to be joining other people (in which case I will need to get up earlier) or staying at home. I think it will be a challenge for me to sleep for three hours in the middle of the afternoon, something I've never done unless I'm sick. If I have a nap in the afternoon longer than 45 minutes I usually get a bit of a headache. I'll ask my friends about what to do with medicine, hopefully it'll be okay to take a paramecatol or something.

I think the weekends are actually going to be more of a challenge than the weekday. On the weekday as I have work to keep me occupied, on the weekend I might just be sitting at home in which case the temptation to eat snacks or drink some water will be far worse. I'll have to talk to my friends about what they do to resist temptation or distract themselves, unfortunately it is summer so going out for a walk or going outside would make things even worse -- you could die walking around in 45+ degree heat without water. And anyone who's followed this blog regularly knows I am susceptible to heatstroke.

Finally, there've been a few comments on my blog providing me with either support or quoting some Hadiths, one of which indicated that it doesn't "count" to Allah without converting, or something along those lines. Let me make this clear -- I am not a Muslim (nor do I play one on TV ;-) ). This is an attempt at experiencing part of the culture to which I am currently living in, and by blogging about it perhaps introducing non-Muslims, especially Westerners, to an objective view of the experience. The West misunderstands the Islamic world to an extent I could not fathom until I moved here. At this point in time the Islamic world and the West are at a crossroads, and resolving the problems between us will not work until such time as the West at least makes an attempt to understand the Islamic world and to not stereotype it based on news reports from Afghanistan or Palestine. Whether it's scaring Swiss voters into banning minarets with visions of niqab-clad women, banning burqas in France, or wrongly assuming Arab feminists are obsessed with veils as "symbols of oppression”, the West is clearly showing the Islamic world it has a lot to learn, and our proud talk of “freedom” will continue to ring hollow. Until such time as the West is willing to meet the Islamic world halfway, to stop projecting our assumptions of what is "wrong" there, and instead make an honest effort to understand their cultures, we will never be able to resolve our differences. I am here in the Middle East and so I will take this unique opportunity to try to understand a Qatari view as best I can. Fasting is just one small step in the process.

I will end with a quote from the recent issue of Time Out - Doha magazine, which has an interview with Mr. Mohammed Ali Al Ghamidi from the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, discussing Ramadan and whether non-Muslims can attend Iftar banquets:

“Of course it is permissible to attend an Iftar. Actually, we recommend trying the fast, and breaking it in the company of Muslims, to gain a sense of the community and belonging.”

Thank you Mr. Al Ghamidi, I truly hope to do so.

Fasting preparations -- part two

Coincidentally the office invited a speaker from the Islamic Cultural Center (the place where I recently went to observe Friday prayers at their mosque, see my April 17, 2010 post) to give an hour-long presentation on Ramadan. It turns out while he was dressed like a Qatari he was actually born in the UK so spoke excellent English. I think he was of Pakistani descent.

He did not dwell too much on fasting, but did remark that dates were the common way to end the fast and noted the timing of various meals. Because it is summer and the sun rises early you have to eat your "morning" meal around 3am. 3am?! Well, okay, I suppose I can do that. I'll be more fortunate than Muslims because after I had this meal I will just go back to bed, Muslims have to pray. I'll have to think about how to work that out, I'll probably just keep a small plate of dates and some water or something by my bed for that 3 AM meal.

I've also taken an opportunity to review some of the hadiths, more specifically the Al-Bukhari Hadiths, a set of hadiths widely accepted by Muslims. Of the around 2200 hadiths there are around 50 of them in a chapter called "The Book of As-Saum” (As-Saum means The Fasting). Many of them are reward-based ones regarding heaven and so forth, mentioning how people who fast will go to Paradise etc. but here are the more day-to-day requirements mentioned in the hadiths:

• Avoid sexual relations with your wife while fasting (not sure why it is just wife and not spouse), because you're not fasting during the evening it's okay then.
o In fact it seems to emphasize that refraining from sexual relations with your wife during evenings is not a good thing so people should not think it is "better" to avoid sexual relations completely during the month of Ramadan. This is mentioned about three or four times. It is also noted that the Prophet Mohammed would visit his wives during Ramadan.
o It also notes that the Prophet used to embrace or kiss his wives while he was fasting during the day, so I guess that's okay.
o If you have sexual relations while fasting (not exactly something you can accidentally do I guess) you should either feed 60 poor people, free a slave, or fast for two successive months instead of one. That is if you can afford to do any of it. In one instance the man who broke the rules was so poor that his "punishment" was that the Prophet gave him a basket of dates and told him to feed his family with it.
• if somebody fights with you or abuses you, you should it say to them twice that you're fasting
• if you cannot observe the Moon to determine when Ramadan ends because the sky is overcast then regard the month to be 30 days [because it is a lunar month sometimes it is 29 days]
• Allah will not accept your fasting if you do not give up lying, acting on those lies, and evil actions
• you should not fast for a day or two ahead of Ramadan unless you have a habit of fasting for other reasons
• some of the Prophet's companions, if they were sleeping when nightfall came and thus missed the breaking of the fast, would not eat at all that evening and of course fast all the next day. The Prophet informed them they did not have to do that and could still eat during the night.
• Fast from the first light of dawn appears to you and is distinct from the darkness of night (which I guess right now is around 3:30 in the morning)
• if you eat or drink something forgetfully just continue fasting as usual, it does not negate your fast for that day
• letting out blood medically while fasting is okay
• you can fast while traveling if you wish but you do not have to
• you should not fast if it would harm yourself needlessly (i.e. you are sick, or weak, or getting heat stroke from being out in the sun)
• if someone has died during Ramadan and thus has missed some days of fasting then his guardians should observe the fast on his behalf (not sure if this means extra days of fasting for them if they are already fasting themselves)
• numerous hadiths mention that people break their fast with something called Sawiq mixed with water. I don't know what that is, I'll have to ask someone.
• If you break the fast too early you should try to make up the extra day after Ramadan
• apparently there are other holy days where Muslims fast for a day such as the day of Ashura (not sure when that is)


Okay that doesn't seem too bad, the 3am thing will be a test though. I'll see what other rules there are when I talk with my Muslim friends.

Fasting preparation and Qur'an review

So I've already cut my coffee intake by half and I figure by Sunday I will be down to one cup a day, from there I'll switch to decaf until Ramadan begins.

I spoke with an Egyptian colleague and he warned me that it was not going to be easy, by midafternoon you're really wiped out. And I have to be careful about going outside and exposing myself to the summer heat for any length of time since you are not allowed to drink water when fasting. He also mentioned that the traditional meal for breaking your fast is some dates and laban (a type of yogurt drink) but I think I will look up the actual Hadith on that. He said it was not a requirement though and you can break your fast with any food.

He seemed a bit perplexed that I would be trying this since I am not Muslim (makes sense, how many non-Muslims generally go "hey I am going to fast too") but he was supportive and perhaps a bit bemused that I was doing this as a cultural experience to share on my blog.

We also discussed briefly about how most Muslims don't take fasting to the extremes, such as people who won't have a shower during the day for fear that they might swallow some water, it's all about genuinely trying to stick with the fast without going to ridiculous lengths. I'm willing to bet some Islamic scholars would disagree with that view.

I also got out my trusty Qur’an to review the sections on fasting. Surprisingly for such a significant event the Qur'an itself only has a handful of passages on it, primarily 2:183- 2:187, the most significant ones being 2:184, 2:185 and 2:187. In brief:

2:184 -- observe the fast for a fixed number of days but if you are ill or on a journey you do not have to fast and can make up those days later. If you have difficulty fasting (because you are elderly or pregnant) you can instead feed a poor person for each day you do not fast.

2:185 -- a month of Ramadan begins when you first sight the crescent moon. And reiterates that if you are ill or on a journey you can make up the days later.

2:187 -- you can have sexual intercourse with your spouse during the evenings. You can eat and drink until the light of dawn appears but you must ensure that you fast until nightfall (i.e all day).


For some reason I recall that children are not supposed to fast either but I don't see it in those sections. I'll do some reviews of the Hadiths later where there will be a lot more detail about fasting and what is and is not acceptable.

Ramadan

Ramadan is fast approaching, which is a period of about a month when Muslims fast during daylight hours, and will not even drink water. It also means that all restaurants in the country will be closed during the day, and alcohol will not be sold anywhere. Even the hotels close down their bars during Ramadan.

Since moving to Qatar a little over four years ago I have made an effort to learn or experience some aspects of Qatari culture -- going to prayers at a mosque, learning Arabic, reading the Qur’an and Hadiths, smoking shisha (okay, I'm kidding about the last one). I figure since Ramadan is approaching I will try out another tradition this year.

Fasting.


Since it is something that Muslims do every year for an entire month I figure why not give it a try and see how challenging it is. I will admit a few other factors have also influenced my decision:

• I'm trying to lose weight, hopefully this will help

• I will only be doing it for about two weeks rather than a month. I'm going back to Canada at the end of August so I will end the fast when I leave

• I do not live far from the office so I do not have to worry about driving home after work feeling tired and dizzy from not eating all day.

Ramadan is a little more than a week away so I do not have a lot of time to prepare. I will talk to my Muslim colleagues in the office to see what is the best way to approach this and how traditionally they start and stop the fast every day. I think the biggest challenge for me will be not having any water, or coffee for that matter. I think I'd better start weaning myself off the caffeine now so I do not end up with a big headache the first day of the fast.

And of course I'll blog about the preparations and my experience with fasting so that you can learn about it as well. Maybe I will also try to find out more about other aspects of Ramadan and how it works in Qatar.

iM iMpressed

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Qatari wedding update (Arab wedding)

So I had a chat with my friend about marriage contracts and what typically went in them. Without going into details about what is in his marriage contract he did say that typically Qatari marriage contracts will have clauses about the following:

• How much money/jewelry/other things she receives (we might refer to this as a dowry but I believe it is actually called Mahr in Arabic)
• Whether she is allowed to work
• Whether she is allowed to drive (?! This might be the Saudi influence here since in Saudi Arabia women aren't allowed to drive)
• Whether they will have their own home
• Possibly who is responsible for paying for the wedding, this is typically the groom and his family anyway but I was told that nowadays some families split the costs, or the bride's family will pay for the bride's celebration. Weddings are expensive.


My friend did clarify there will be some things you won't see in the contract:

• How many children they will have. (I guess you get as many as Allah gives you)
• Whether he can have more than one wife. The Qur'an allows a man to have four wives so you cannot exclude that right.

I find the pragmatism of the marriage contract to be very interesting. While in the West we will say wedding vows full of more nebulous promises here in Qatar a marriage is a contractual obligation, complete with specific requirements that need to be adhered to. I'm assuming that the bride can petition for divorce for breach of contract should her husband not meet any of the conditions.

Passport

In other news I got my passport renewed today. This was a bit more challenging than you might think.

Canada does not have an embassy in Qatar. I've heard they will be opening one soon but to date nada. So I have to use the nearest embassy, which is in Kuwait. Needless to say it is a bit problematic to fly over there just to drop off some passport documentation. But if you mail everything how do you pay the embassy?

The embassy helpfully told me about a service that most couriers do called “Visa Pak”. The courier will take your stuff to the embassy, pay the embassy fees, then bring your stuff back to you when the embassy has issued your new passport and you reimburse the courier for the costs. Can't argue with that.

Well, I could have once I figured out how much the bloody thing would cost. I went to the courier today to get my shiny new passport and the courier charged me QR 500 on top of the passport fees. That’s US$140! To courier an old passport and a three-page application! For an extra hundred bucks I could have flown to Kuwait myself and at least gotten a trip out of it (well, maybe not, I've had to make two trips to drop off and pick up the passport). Still, I think a $140 is a bit steep.

Anyway, I have a new passport issued from Kuwait City, which should guarantee me "random selection" at most Western airports.

It's dang hot!

I guess I haven't mentioned yet that summer is here and man is it hot! According to the papers this summer looks like it's going to break records. Last week Qatar was above 50°, and one area hit about 55° (that's about 130°F for those of you who aren't used to Celsius).

Someone I know showed me a cell phone picture that they took of the dashboard of their car. Apparently he had left his car outside in the sun during one of those 50+ degree days and the dashboard had a thermometer in it. The dashboard showed that the car was 60°C inside! Pretty wild.

I did not go outside much but even then my lips got chapped from the heat. I never had chapped lips so bad before and it was really annoying.

Unfortunately my next vacation is not until the end of August so looks like I'm stuck with the heat for another month. At least there is a pool nearby, with shade.

Qatar Wedding Update (Arab wedding)

An update on my friend's pending nuptials -- apparently the contract has been finalized and presented by the two families to the Court. The Court has accepted the contract so, technically, he is now married!

Similar to when he announced when he was getting married he didn't make a big deal about this part of the process. My understanding is that, culturally speaking, he is not married until the ceremony/celebrations are completed, which may still be a while -- I do not think they have finalized a date yet. Guess there is still time to back out if either party wants to cancel. For now he goes to his fiancée’s (wife’s?) house to chat with her and have dinner with her family. He is also preparing a place where they will live once they have the marriage ceremony. It is good to hear things are going well.

I've been wanting to ask him what exactly is in the contract but I’ve refrained from doing so to respect his privacy. Arabs are generally a private people and can get uncomfortable with questions about their personal life, including asking them about family members. If I'm not mistaken Arabs generally consider it impolite for a man to ask another man about women in his family. Generally you would just ask a man how his family is doing, rather than asking about specific members such as his mother, sister, daughter, wife etc. I'm sure asking about what is in their marriage contract qualifies as very personal information.

As for the contract I do know that the contract has in it that she can work if she wishes to because she currently has a job and he mentioned that she will continue to work there, but I do not know much else. Maybe I will just ask him to give me what details he's willing to share with me (and you as well, he knows I'm blogging about this).

World Cup

While I've never been a big soccer fan I will always watch the World Cup. I enjoy the expectations and drama -- entire countries become jubilant or depressed over one game. An underdog beating a marquee team could cause tens of millions of people to party until morning. Fans dress up like it's a costume party. World Cup for most of the world is like Canada following the hockey during the Winter Olympics.

So naturally most of the guys in the office were talking about it. You'll have to trust me that this is not me jumping on the bandwagon but from the get-go I was backing South American teams. It seemed that everyone in the office was always going on about the European teams and with the exception of Argentina and Brazil they were dismissing the rest of the South American teams. I disagreed and in fact stated that my "dark horse" team was Chile. (I always pick one underdog team to root for, in the last World Cup it was Ghana.)

Well the round-robin is over and of the 15 round-robin games that South American teams played they only lost one. All five South American teams are through to the knockout stages, and 4 of the 5 won their groups. Contrast that with Europe where France and Italy were knocked out early, and both England and Spain needed a win in their last game to advance. I'm sure people in England were outraged that the much-maligned USA wound up winning the group that England was in.

It is even possible that 4 South American teams will advance to the quarterfinals (Chile and Brazil play in the round of 16 so one South American team has to be knocked out, go Chile!)

Africa did not fare as well which is a shame because there were high expectations that with the tournament being held in South Africa the African teams should do well. Of the six teams from Africa only one made it through to the knockout rounds (Ghana). The hosts South Africa did not make it through, the first time in World Cup history that the host did not advance from the round-robin stages.

Anyway having seen the round-robin matches I'm backing Chile as the underdog team and Spain as the "most likely to win" team.

Beaches

So before summer really got into full swing, with its 45+ degree temperatures, I wanted to go to the beach. I had not been to a beach in Qatar since maybe October 2009 and I figured I should since for the rest of the summer I'll be indoors or sitting in the shade by a pool. There was a beach reasonably close to where my Turkish friend lived that I had never been to, called Wakra beach. He had never been there either so we figured what the heck let's go there in the morning when it is not too hot and check it out.

Here it is:




It's actually more of a tidal flat so the water was really shallow. You can maybe even see that car out on a little "island" in the distance, though the water surrounding it was probably little more than a foot and a half deep. The sand around us was still wet from the outgoing tide so we put our gear on a cinderblock and started heading into the water. Qatar is generally so flat you can go out a long way, I think we walked about 150 m before we got into water that was even waist deep. Walking over 100 m in knee-deep water gets pretty tiring.

What was strange is that in most parts the water was quite warm but then suddenly you would enter another area and the water would cool considerably, probably by 6 or 7°. It was a really sudden transition so both my friend and I were quite surprised when we hit the cool zone. But then go another 20 m and the water was warm again. The cold water was more refreshing so we stayed in that.

Why was there this area of cold water? I have my suspicions ...






Nope, I have no idea what that is in the background. I don't think I want to know. Ignorance truly is bliss sometimes.

Overall I found the beach experience fairly unrewarding and after a swim and having a quick bite on the towel we took off back to his place.

I will note that Wakra is building a marketplace that is nearby very similar to Souq Waqif (the old souq) in Doha, but right by the shore. It will probably be ready in about a year and I think it'll be very nice when it's done.

Back to the beach. I think I was a little underwhelmed by the whole experience because not a month back I was here ...


[ATTENTION GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCHERS -- THIS IS NOT A PICTURE OF A QATAR BEACH!] (it seems like anyone using GIS for "qatar beaches" gets this photo. No idea why.)

No comparison. Bermuda does spoil you for beaches. I have traveled a lot and so far the beaches in Bermuda have been the best in the world that I have experienced. Hands down.

I'm fine

I know, I haven't posted for a long time. I'm okay – nothing’s wrong.

I have been swamped at work so I have not had a lot of time for blogging. More importantly the Internet has conked out in my building and with luck they will finally have it fixed in the next couple of days. I'm posting this from the computer at work, which is something I don't like doing but I figure it's been so long since I posted I figure I better give everyone an update lest you all think I'm in the hospital or something.

I'm back!

Okay, I'm back in Doha! (Actually, I was back on the 10th but have been swamped with unpacking/work/etc thereafter)

Wow, Bermuda was awesome! It was sunny pretty much the whole time I was there and I was down at the beach 4 times. Got to see Hamilton, St. George's, Tobacco Bay, the Aquarium/Zoo (with its Galapagos tortoises and evil little monkeys), my old house, and meet up with tons of friends that I'd not seen since I left for Qatar. Drank plenty of Black Seal Rum too. In fact the wedding reception I attended really seemed to take off when the Black Seal came out (and incriminating photos show its true. No, not of the bride or groom).

I've traveled a lot around the world but I have yet to find any beaches that can compare to Bermuda's. I guess after living there for five years you just kind of took it for granted so was a real wake-up call to go back and experience it again.

Not everything in Bermuda was laughter and joy. I went back to my barbershop to find out that Harold, an elderly Bermudian gentlemen who had been my barber while I lived in Bermuda, had passed away two years ago. He enjoyed talking about Bermuda and politics, and used to keep a bottle of St. Lucia Rum on the counter for use as a hair tonic -- something Bermudian men used to use in the past to prevent hair loss. I was saddened to hear he was gone.

After that it was three days in not-quite-as-warm London, where I think at one point temperatures dropped to 9°C at midday (in May!). But I got to wander around Kensington, Oxford Street, St. Paul's Cathedral, saw Les Miserables at a theater near Piccadilly Circus, went to a barbecue in Putney, and had a few pints at a couple of pubs to round out the British experience. Managed to pick up the latest book by Richard Dawkins while I was there too.

So, long story short, let's send out some kudos:

Yotel (yotel.com): a capsule hotel that opened up recently at Gatwick airport. I had an eight hour layover after a 7-hour overnight flight and was able to catch five hours sleep in a comfortable bed for the price of about 6 pounds an hour.

Horizons Cottages in Bermuda: a pretty hotel made up of a number of small buildings across a 150-year-old estate. A taste of old Bermuda at its best. Also provided access to the facilities at the nearby Coral Beach Club.

Janel and Enrico, whose wedding I flew to Bermuda for. Congratulations guys! Fantastic wedding, I had a great time.

My friends Knut & Petra, and George & RItu, who each had me over for dinner to catch up on old times.

Shauna, for inviting me over to my old house in Bermuda so that I could see the place once again.

David, for letting me crash in London at his place for a few days and going to the play.

David's friends Damien and (uh-oh, I can't remember her name I keep thinking it's Allison but I know that's not it) for inviting me over to their barbecue. Damien has two airline seats in his living room (tray tables and all), which was really cool to sit in.

and Qatar Airways and British Airways. The flights were smooth, service was fine.

Vacation update

In London right now, saw St Paul's Cathedral and Les Miserables yesterday, going to a BBQ today. Fly back to Qatar tomorrow. I believe some people are trying to reach me today so hopefully they stop by the blog to see that I'm not at home.

Vacation

Sorry, forgot to mention I'm on vacation now -- that's why I haven't been posting. Currently in Bermuda for a wedding, then off to London for a few days.

I know, I know, such a tough life.

A Trip to the Mosque

So as I noted in a previous post I was going to visit a nearby mosque. So this Friday I went to visit English-language services at the Islamic Cultural Centre's mosque. Before I went I spoke to my Muslim colleagues about any type of preparation and dress code:

1) wear pants, do not wear shorts if they go above the knee
2) you don't have to wear anything fancy like a suit and tie, you can wear a T-shirt and jeans if you like
3) do not wear a shirt with pictures on it, especially representations of people (?? Not entirely sure why that is an issue but okay)

That was about it. So I went in a nice golf shirt and slacks. I took an English-language copy of the Qur'an with me to read while I was there and in case they referred to any specific verses. The service wasn't going to start until sometime after 1130 but I've been told to get there at 11 so that I could get a space inside the mosque. Apparently the place fills up and the overflow goes into other rooms where there is video feed of the Imam.

The mosque was a large carpeted room that could seat about 300 to 400 people. There was a small alcove which indicated the direction you had to pray, although it was pretty apparent from the carpet as well since it had rows perpendicular to the alcove for people to line themselves up at. (I believe this is a common feature of all mosques, and is why when you see video of people praying at mosques they all seem to be lined up perfectly with enough space in between the rows to bow). The only furniture consisted of a small platform in front of the alcove from where the Imam gives his sermon, and around three plastic chairs in the back corners, probably for elderly worshipers or people with back problems. Around the walls were numerous small bookshelves with copies of the Qur'an in various languages. Each bookshelf had a small sign indicating the language of the Qur'ans on it and I could see: English, French, Turkish, Somali, Albanian, Philippines, Thai, Hindi, and at least four or five other shelves that were too far away for me to read the sign.

When I got there the room was maybe one third full, men only, most of them either reading from a Qur'an or doing their prayers. I sat up against the back wall so that I could have a bit of back support and be out of the way. I spent the next half hour looking through my Qur'an and watching the men come in. It was a truly diverse crowd. I noticed Malaysians, Filipinos, Chinese, people from Central Asia (possibly Afghani), Nepalese, Pakistanis and other people from South Asia, some Turks, Africans (both West and East Africa), a few Arabs (odd because I would expect them to go to Arabic-language services), and about a half-dozen Caucasians. Sure enough the dress code varied widely, ranging from national dress to jeans and T-shirt. One guy even had a baseball cap on backward. As soon as anyone entered they found a spot and started doing their prayers. By about 11:30 the room was 90% full and there wasn't much space to move around. All the spots against the back wall were now taken and I had what seemed to be a Thai or Malay man to my right and a Nepalese man to my left.

A man approached the microphone and started doing the call to prayer, which reverberated throughout the centre and surrounding area via speakers throughout the building. More people came in and the room was full. Then the Imam took the podium and started his sermon. While giving the sermon many latecomers continued doing their prayers.

The sermon did not refer to any specific passage in the Qur'an, but touched upon the golden age of Islam (around the 10th to 14th centuries) and how the Qur'an encourages people to wonder and think about the world. [I did a blog post probably a year ago discussing the golden age of Islam and what likely lead to its decline]. He also mentioned about how scientific discoveries have reconciled with what is said in the Qur'an -- I later read in the Islam section of the newspaper the same topic so maybe he does the newspaper articles as well. His sermon was done in about 30 minutes, after which he said something in Arabic and everyone turned their palms upward and started reciting something that I didn't understand. Then everyone stood up and I stood up with them, figuring that was it. . .

Then the Imam said something and everyone started bowing - the beginning of a set of standard prayer movements (bow, kneel, press your forehead to the floor etc. ) I was a little unprepared for them to do that and needless to say I was the only one still standing. Looks like I was the only non-Muslim in the room! The guys to the left and right of me clearly noticed I hadn't bowed yet. (I had been found out! Will all the non-Muslims please stand up!) Rather than standing there like an idiot I just imitated what everyone else was doing. After a couple minutes of bowing/kneeling etc. we were done and people started leaving. All in all the whole thing took maybe 50 minutes, shorter than most Christians Sunday services. No hymns or singing, just a short sermon and a couple of prayers.

The Malay guy next to me asked if I was new. I told them I'm not a Muslim but that the Islamic Cultural Centre invited me to attend the services as part of learning about Islam. He seemed kind of happy with that.

Then I left the room with the others, got my shoes, and headed out.

That was an interesting experience, I was kind of surprised that it was shorter than a standard Christian service. I did like the multiculturalism, it really did have people from all over the world and seemed quite inclusive. Thankfully no one seemed to be upset with a non-Muslim being there.

I have a vacation coming up soon, I think after that I will sign up for the Centre's mosque tour.

National Museum of Iraq

This week I attended a talk at the Museum of Islamic Art on the looting of the National Museum of Iraq during the Iraq invasion. Many of you may remember from the early days of the invasion how during the chaos hoards of people were looting the National Museum of its Assyrian and other Mesopotamian treasures (along with all the media outrage about how could this happen, why didn't the coalition think about this and immediately secure the Museum, all those archaeological wonders would be lost etc.). I recall it.

So it was interesting to hear from a scholar who was the Deputy Director General (or some very senior title) of the Museum from 1988 to 1990. He had a fascinating story to tell.

Back in 1990, at the approach of the what we now refer to as the first Gulf War, the Director General for the Museum closed the Museum and secretly gathered a number of employees, instructing them to pack all of the most valuable pieces in the Museum in crates for placement in the vaults of the Central Bank of Iraq. It took them about a week but thousands of the best pieces in the collection were safely transported to the Central Bank for safekeeping.

The vault had two locks, an "A" key and a "B" key, and once locked the keyholders left the city -- one of them went north, the other one south, with instructions to not return unless certain individuals asked them to come back so that the vault could be opened. Everyone else was sworn to secrecy.

After the first Gulf War it was decided to keep the treasures in the vault. The Museum still had tens of thousands of other pieces which they put on display but the most important ones remained safely locked away. The two keyholders had not been instructed to return.

Fast forward to 2003 and the looting of the Museum. While tens of thousands of pieces were looted from the Museum (the scholar estimated about 50,000) no one realized that the best pieces were somewhere else. Everyone just assumed the looters had them (and the looters probably assumed someone else eluded them before they got to them). Even the media didn't know.

Years later the story did come out. Somehow, and it's not entirely sure who the leak was, a reporter found out that the pieces were in the Central Bank vault and mentioned it on a radio show. Shortly thereafter there were attacks on the Central Bank, likely by criminal gangs trying to get the valuables. The boldest attack was four men using RPGs to try to break into the bank. Thankfully something went wrong and they were killed by the explosion.

It was decided that the pieces had to be removed from the bank. The keyholders were instructed to return, the vault was opened, and with the help of the American military the pieces were taken somewhere else for safekeeping.

We were then shown a slideshow of the items being removed from crates in the Central Bank vault. (And when I mean crates I'm talking about those huge 6' x 4' x 3' crates.)

Pretty much every picture showed items of pure gold. Bracelets, necklaces, masks, crowns, all made of gold with precious stones. Some of the pieces weighed more than a kilogram. Okay not everything was gold, there were a few vases and other statuary, but it appeared they were the minority. I couldn't even estimate what the collection was worth.

Over the ensuing years about 15,000 of the 50,000 pieces looted from the Museum have been recovered, and the greatest pieces of Mesopotamian art are still safe. Sadly, no one knows when or if they will ever be on display again.

The scholar knows where the collection is now being kept. Not surprisingly, he refused to tell us.

Some pearls, a mosque, a souq, and a massage

Saturday turned out to be a varied and interesting day.

First, I decided to go to the Museum of Islamic Art to see their special exhibit on pearls, which is only here until June. Turned out to be more impressive than I thought it would be.

-- The first part of the exhibit focused on the various types and qualities of pearls, usually with examples of the shells the pearls came from.

-- I didn't realize that almost all species of mollusk could produce pearls, just that some rarely do (for example there are fewer than a dozen known pearls from nautilus and conch shells. The museum displayed examples of them).

-- From there it was discussion of the pearl industry throughout history, followed by a large display of Qatar's pearl history, including photos and videos of pearl diving off the coast (the industry largely vanished in Qatar in the 1930s thanks to Mikimoto, and the last divings occurred in the late 70s).

-- An area dedicated to Mikimoto, who developed cultured pearls, allowing for the "farming" of pearls from which most pearls are derived today. There were displays of some of Mikimoto's finest jewelry.

-- Some historical jewelry and other items with pearls, including crowns, robes, necklaces, and a rug commissioned by one of the Indian maharajas which had thousands of pearls in it. The rug was created with the intention of draping it over the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed, though it never made it there.

-- Finally, areas dedicated to modern jewelry incorporating pearls, including one-of-a-kind Cartier and Coco Chanel pieces.

After the Museum I walked about 20 minutes to FANAR (the Qatar Islamic Cultural Center), but they were closed until evening. A lot of places in Qatar still have hours where they are open in the mornings and evenings, closing for the afternoon. The Old Souq has similar hours.

Speaking of which I then walked over to the Old Souq area (Souq Waqif). Most of it was of course closed but I knew that one place would be open, a Chinese massage my friend Fayez and I frequent. Because of all the standing around and walking I did today it seemed like a good time to have a foot massage. My masseur was a Chinese guy and he did a great job. He spoke very little English and I was a bit surprised when I asked him his name and he replied, "Ali". I think he noticed I looked at him a bit quizzically (Ali is not exactly a common Chinese name) because he then said, "Chinese Muslim". Ah, that explains it.

Anyway for those interested an hour-long foot massage is ~$25. Best deal in town. You would pay 5x that at a hotel, maybe more.

So it was back to FANAR now that they would be open. I had realized that in the four years I've been here I've never actually attended Friday prayers at a mosque. I recall that there is an English-language one somewhere so I figured I'd ask FANAR about it and see if it was open to non-Muslims.

I was greeted by a Mr. Umar and we had a long chat about Islam. I think I threw them off a little because he was prepared to discuss basic things about Islam but I was already well-versed enough in the basics through my own studies and discussions with my Muslim friends. Anyway we had a nice chat, I found out that the Centre holds "services" (for lack of a better word) in English every Friday at 11 that is open to non-Muslims. He also told me they organize mosque tours where you can tour various mosques in the city. That's cool, I'll definitely sign up for one of those later, I never know about mosques and whether non-Muslims are allowed to enter them. Some do and some don't but they don't post signs.

I thanked Mr. Umar, he gave me some literature, and my plan for this Friday morning will be to go to the mosque to see what Friday prayer services are all about.
Then it was back to the Souq to relax and have a snack. By the time I got there though I was feeling hot so I stopped at a café and had a juice. It didn't help and I started feeling a little feverish so I went home.

When I got home I was feeling terrible so I immediately grabbed bottled water, medications, and went straight to bed. I was feverish, nauseous, and had very restless sleep. This continued into Sunday morning at which point I started feeling better.

My guess -- heat exhaustion. I've been walking around all afternoon, in the sun, in temperatures around the mid-30s.

You'd think after being here four years I would learn. This is probably the third time this has happened to me. At what point is my brain going to figure out that April does not mean spring-like temperatures.

Just dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

At least I got better and hopefully from now on I won't be so reckless.

More on veils

Man, it's been a crazy week. Anyway . . .

The issue of veils really stirs up a debate in the West. I recall this from one Internet thread discussing it:

"The reality of the veil is cultural apartheid. The reality of the veil is it is a symbol of oppression of women in many cultures."

I do not think it can be viewed solely on those terms, even now. The veil has practical reasons for its use (dust storms come to mind). We in the West may view it as symbolic oppression but it cannot be seen that way in absolute terms as it was also a practical dress code, which was further galvanized under religious ideology.
Note that plenty of Islamic nations are not in deserts, and veils are not commonly used there (now that I think about it there may even be a correlation between how common veils are in a society and how dry & dusty it is, but I digress), yet women in countries without veils still face significant challenges in terms of discrimination and rights.

Rather than us in the West pontificating about what veils do and don't mean let's see what some Arab feminists think. I found one recap of a recent feminist conference [I have paraphrased key points from one speech]

Arab Feminisms: A Critical Perspective | International Conference | October 4 – 7, 2009
Mervat F. Hatem, Ph.D., a Professor of Political Science at Howard University in Washington D.C., chose 3 main points to highlight:

-- There is a critical need to re-evaluate the voices of women in our Arab history, which is entirely biased towards men even when it comes to advances in women’s rights.

-- It is our mission to criticize the views of Arab “modernity” that were born out of colonial histories and to also criticize governmentalities that used motherhood in the service of nation-building, boxing women into that familial role.

-- We must also critically take on the feminist debates and political divisions of secular vs. religious feminists and women, of the middle class in particular.
Women’s rights activists continue to face great oppression in our countries, such as the targeted attacks of women in public demonstrations in Egypt, the tarnishing of reputations of activists in Tunisia, and the direct violence against women during the civil war in Algeria.

The topic of Muslim Feminism is a crucial one for us to address during this conference, Hatem asserted. The dominance of the secularist discourse of Arab feminism has led many to believe that secularism is the only solution to women’s problems. We should challenge such views and allow room for different feminisms, particularly Islamic Feminism, to emerge. Muslim feminists would still be able to deny the projects of Islamic nation-building while, at the same time, promoting Islamic Feminism. It is always dangerous when any feminist discourse claims to be the only correct discourse. Hatem affirmed that she refused discourses around the veil for example, which, in the name of feminism, deny Muslim women the right to their own choices.




It would appear that Prof. Hatem feels there are far bigger issues than wearing veils.

What about in Qatar (again I have paraphrased a recent article, and btw she does not wear a veil):

Secretary general of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs Noor al-Malki talking at the 5th Arab-European dialogue on women’s rights, organised by the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) called yesterday for:

-- (temporaily) enacting a special legislation that regulates the rights of Qatari women married to foreigners and their children, to guarantee those children the same rights to education and health as that of the citizens.

-- quash all articles that discriminate against Qatari woman (married to foreigners) and recognising her children’s rights to automatic citizenship

-- an amendment to some of the articles of the country’s criminal code is needed to secure better protection to the victims of violence in the family.

-- abolishing the ban on appointing women in certain positions, that they were entitled to equal privileges like men.

-- protect housemaids by issuing a special legislation to protect them from all types of violations.




Plenty of big issues that need dealing with, including some that were dealt with in the West up to 100 years ago. Ms al-Malki is clearly outspoken and critical about ertain aspects of how women are treated in Qatar. No mention about veils though. And Qatar is a predominately Wahhabist nation, as is Saudi Arabia.

I am not sure that Arab feminists see the veil in the same way that we do in the West, and thus do not really understand why the West fixates on it. I suspect that most Arab feminists would prefer the West spend its time and resources pressuring Arab governments to address the real problems women face in these countries instead of the debates on whether to ban what the West subjectively interprets as symbols of oppression or lack of freedom.