By Karin Friedemann,. TMO

In the past, I have written about the connection between the women’s hijab and the struggle for protecting environmental resources. Hijab – beyond religion – is a political statement saying, “I will not be commodified.”

Women’s bodies are essentially part of the earth’s resources. Her offspring can either thrive or become endangered. That is one reason why it is important to protect women.
Yet women’s persons are resources in themselves – embodiments of boundless love, beauty, organization and creativity when properly nourished. Women are the personal maintainers of human life and human culture. Yet, women are also usually in a weaker position than men, and so must struggle to complete their tasks on earth while simultaneously struggling to create a situation of sustainability on earth.

Sustainability, in environmental terms, means actions that lead to general health of the soil, air and water. Sustainability, in human terms, means actions that lead to the general health of self esteem, relationships, and ability to contribute to the community. Many times, people in weaker positions like women and children, or indigenous populations such as Native Americans or Palestinians, suffer a lot because of the inability or refusal of the ruling class to hear their voices or care how they feel.

At this time in history, we as humans are at a watershed moment. The environment is in a state of crisis, largely our fault, due to a combination of unbridled consumerism and unbridled warmongering leading to burning up the ozone layer with bombs, airplanes, factories and automobiles. We as a species are at a point where we have to take responsibility for the way things are, and try to do better. Because if we don’t, we will all lose the feeling that our planet is a comfortable and safe place to live and have children.

While this is a pretty scary thing to realize, it’s also pretty amazing. God chose us, out of all the living species, to decide what is going to happen on this planet. There is no other species besides us that is competing for the goal of making decisions for everyone. Yes, whether you believe in God or not, we cannot deny that we as a species have been made responsible for everything – even a frog. And the proof is that there is no frog on earth, except in a fairy tale, that would ever be able to take responsibility for a human.

If we were imbued with the spirit of hope and faith, the potential of good action when realizing this intensely glorifying responsibility would be beyond religion. But most people are not aware that God created us to make the world a better place.

Many people have already become cynical and decided that the earth is not a good place for raising children and have told themselves that they are doing the right thing by not investing in the future. Those of us who do have children often feel like victims of a hurricane, needing intense amounts of help but not ever receiving enough. It takes a village to raise a child, but today’s world is a prison complex of individual cells, where nobody really talks to anybody, and each child is completely and utterly on their own.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of Center for Biological Diversity, made five simple demands of President Obama in a recent article in the Huffington Post:

1. Address climate change and ocean acidification.
2. Stem the extinction crisis.
3. Keep politics out of the Endangered Species Act and other vital environmental laws.
4. Safeguard our public lands, wild places and the Arctic.
5. Embrace a newer, cleaner energy.

While an oppressed person might view these demands for a safe living environment as basic part of being alive, a ruling class person might view other people’s life demands as negotiable, or even justify denying them through force.

In Brazil, indigenous peoples and traditional groups occupied the Belo Monte construction site to protest the building of a dam. According to White Wolf Pack:

“Everything started with 13 fisherman camping on an island and evolved to almost 200 people between river-dependent community members, small farmers, boat pilots, indigenous leaders, and fisherman. Those 13 brave warriors managed to build a beautiful and organized community. A team of three women cooked day and night for everybody. The stories shared under the stunning sun and crazy storms; the laughs; tears; even the quarrels between people were a sign that we were becoming a big family. No dam could take that from us.”

The protesters were all there “to denounce the violation of their rights and the government’s pre-conditions that where never met by the company. People should never have to negotiate to secure their rights. With that in mind, we know that the battle is not over, and the dream to stop the Belo Monte dam continues.”

The importance of power dynamics is addressed by Yashar Ali, Los Angeles author of On Her Terms: The Modern Woman’s Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Romance:

“Women are consciously and unconsciously taught that they are responsible for keeping the man by doing what’s necessary to make him happy. The onus is on women to change, to adjust, to push aside what they need or want in an effort to appease men so that they are willing to engage in dating or being in a relationship at all… Women are faced with the responsibility of maintaining the relationship, while men have the power to direct where the relationship goes.”

Ali’s book is meant to encourage women to stop ignoring or accepting behavior that makes them feel uncomfortable, and to stop making massive adjustments in their character and fundamental selves in order to make a man more comfortable.

“It’s time for women to stop giving up ground when it comes to romance and it’s also time for men to stop expecting them to give up this territory. For too many women, the tone, tenor, nature, path, and dynamics of the romantic part of their life is on the man’s terms. And it’s time for our society at large to recognize it and work to shift that imbalance.”

One of the beautiful things about Islam is that people should never have to negotiate to secure their rights. Human rights are non-negotiable. They are God-given and self-evident. The honor of the life of a human being is never negotiable. It is important for women to address imbalances in their personal relationships in the same way that it is important for all oppressed people who value the Earth to address imbalances in the environment.

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By Ilyas Choudry, TMO

Two Houston voters from the Muslim community.

Houston, Texas: National exit polls conducted in last week’s US general elections showed that Asian Americans voted at 73% for Democrats and the re-election of President Barack Obama.  This was higher than any ethnic community with the exception of African Americans. Specific polling in areas with significant Muslim, Arab, South Asian (MASA) communities, indicated voting for Obama exceeding 80%. In several of the battleground states where Obama’s margin of victory was razor thin, this overwhelming support from the MASA communities was instrumental in his and the Democrats impressive wins’.

In the greater Houston area of Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston counties, the sophisticated organized efforts of EMERGE USA were evident in the higher than usual turnout in the MASA communities. EMERGE, which stands for Empowerment Motivating Educating Resourceful Grassroots Entities and whose primary objective is to “channel underrepresented communities like MASA into the mainstream American political landscape”, organized a grassroots educational effort over the past two months. Specifically they hired three fulltime interns and gave then comprehensive training in voter outreach efforts focused on MASA turnout. Additionally they gathered an impressive group of volunteers and stakeholders to provide support for these fulltime interns.

Rather than using expensive TV ads or glossy color mail pieces, they focused on those activities which have historically been effective in communicating with and in the MASA communities. They made thousands of ethnic-scripted phone calls as well as conducted an interactive hour-long daily informative radio program in the last 2+ weeks of the campaign which combined the presence of candidates on radio with dissemination of basic voting information to the general public. They placed large size polling location info-posters in tens of community businesses and placed full-page ads in ethnic newspapers, and also bought time for advertisement and public-service announcements in Desi radio stations. They assisted in organizing Candidate Forms which provided interest and information to political activists and community organizers. They made a specific outreach effort to the youth through college & university programs emphasizing the importance of all factions of our community participating in the elections. They also appeared at ethnic events where the message for voting could be propagated. Finally, on Election Day, they assisted hundreds of community members to get to their correct polling location to vote.

The combination of these efforts resulted in a very large segment of the community participating in Early Voting and then on Election Day such that it likely was the swing factor in the margin of victory for many candidates, including President Obama who won Harris County by a scant 585 votes.

EMERGE USA conducted an exit poll of 2050 likely voters from the Muslim, Arab and South Asian American (MASA) communities in Florida. The results of the poll show that niche ethnic and religious constituencies like ours can play a decisive role where local elections are traditionally won by slim margins.

Many right wing commentators have lumped all immigrant communities into the derogatory category of “takers” while totally ignoring that the MASA and Asian American communities are the fastest growing ethnic communities, have the lowest US unemployment rate (at 4.9 % while it is 7% for whites and 14.7% for blacks) and are among the communities with the highest education and income levels. Using their advantaged position in education and economics, the MASA communities have voted at unprecedented and record levels, thereby effectively rejecting the right wing efforts to marginalize them. However, both parties cannot take us for granted and have to clearly demonstrate that they deserve our continued support and vote by involving members of our community in their leadership and by showing support for causes that are important to us.

EMERGE USA, which was established some 5 years ago, is active nationally with presence and focused efforts in Florida and Texas. Additional information is available on their website www.emerge-usa.org and the Texas contact person is their Chairman AJ Durrani.

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By Amna Husain

September 2012

“Nobody wore hijab! This was 1978,” recalls Najah, as she recollects how and when she started wearing it. Najah put on her hijab (Muslim head-scarf) of her own volition when she turned 18. Her family was not very conservative and her mother could not understand why Najah was adamant about adopting hijab – often associated with conservative Islam. It was a “foreign” idea for her family. “Who is going to marry you?” her distraught mother asked as she thought it would obliterate marriage prospects for her young daughter.

“We were less Muslim, more cultural,” says Najah about her family. But for her, it was a means to expressing her “identity” and the freedom that being American afforded her. Her inquisitive mind studied and “adopted Islam intellectually,” and that’s why her convictions were strong. She chose to follow her religion. It was not an imposition.

She refers to herself as a “new thing” – a by-product of a merger between being Arab, American, and Islamic – all at once. She believes these are not mutually exclusive identities – even in a post 9/11 America. To top all this, being a woman should have added a burden. But not in Najah’s case. A second-generation American of Arab descent, Najah experienced growing up in a neighborhood that was predominantly Arab and Muslim – Dearborn, Michigan. She learned to navigate through attitudes and beliefs that were often conflicting, very early in life. 

A mother of four, Najah exudes a calm radiance and passion at the same time. “I was proud to be a female and that was unusual in the context that I grew up in,” says Najah, referring to the typical patriarchal system in Muslim households.

“I gained a sense of self early on”, she says proudly. This confidence came from growing up in a house that was more matriarchal. “He loved his girls,” Najah says about her father who was quite progressive for his time.

“The first time you get hit, it’s his fault – the second time, it’s yours. Because you allowed it,” Najah reminisces what her father would say to her. “So I grew up with this identity and how a man ought to treat a woman, and how my father loved my mom,” exclaims Najah. “The idea of women having a place was really integrated in our household…..and because of that I realized that women can have space, and should. My parents were very fair. I saw a lot of inequality in our community….the men were getting educated but the women were not,” recalls Najah. Her father encouraged her to get an education and be confident.

Another factor that reinforced her sense of self and womanhood was through an understanding of women’s place in Islam and how much respect the religion gives them. That understanding and the “love of God, unleashed huge potential” in her and is the motivation behind her humanitarian efforts. 

Najah Bazzy is a registered nurse, a Transcultural Nurse Clinical Specialist and a Diversity Specialist, with 25 years specializing in the area of Transcultural Health Care.  She has an extensive background in critical care nursing with special expertise in Arab and Muslim health care, beliefs, and practices.  She is the CEO of Diversity Specialists and Transcultural Health Care Solutions. She is well known locally and internationally, for her lectures on many topics related to Islam, including interfaith dialogue, gender equity and equality, human rights, and medical ethics.

Bazzy is also the executive director and founder of Zaman International, a humanitarian non-profit organization that provides crucial services to many in the Metropolitan Detroit through its programs in refugee settlement, vocational training for women, mobile food pantry, infant burial assistance and an international well projects providing safe drinking water to at-risk populations.

Becoming a social activist and a humanitarian has been a journey for Najah. Caring for a brother born with muscular dystrophy instilled in her a life-long desire to help. “It came naturally to me,” says Najah. As her life unfolded, she kept on evolving each time she came across something that made an impact. Walking into a hospital room where 220 fetuses were stored in jars, shocked her. She could not believe that these fetuses were unclaimed and not buried. This experience gave birth to the program Plots for Tots at her organization, Zaman International.

The refugee settlement services (Bayt ul Zahra) came from how she feels about homelessness and the challenges that new, low-income immigrants go through. Visiting an immigrant family for a home visit of their baby she had cared for in the hospital, left an indelible mark on her. This baby was dying of cancer. They brought the baby out in a clothes basket and had no furniture or utensils. Seeing that baby lie in that laundry basket on white towels was an emotional moment for her. To this day, she cannot believe what she saw that day. “That was a moment in time when I said to myself…I cannot NOT do something about this. I realized how privileged we were here (in America). It was quite an eye-opener for me. That is how Bayt ul Zahra started,” explains Najah.

She has taken a rather controversial stance on organ-donation which is a much-debated topic in Islam. Tears well up her bright, hazel-green eyes as she recounts a life-saving incident that made her decide that her heart, liver, kidney and lungs will donated when she dies. While working as a nurse in an open heart intensive care unit, she once had to help revive a heart patient. “We had to split the chest open and retract the ribs. And there is this man’s heart,” she remembers. The doctor shouted, “Najah pump the heart.” She remembers giving the patient a cardiac massage that saved his life. “I was exhausted. I had to process all that happened. I cried and fell apart. It’s all the same. This is a human family. That’s the end of it. It does not matter where you come from. The awesomeness of God is profound. Doesn’t matter what he dresses us up on the outside, we are all the same. I became a different person in that moment. I became a servant of His humanity,” she says with a broken voice.

Najah has her fair share of challenges: finding resources to support the humanitarian efforts, making people understand and have the same passion as her, and dealing with the occasional judgmental attitude of people. But her non-threatening demeanor and honesty gives her credibility.

She is a proud American and a proud Muslim who feels that her country has allowed her to be what she wanted to be and have that “blended” identity. But she is worried. In her opinion, the right Muslims who really love America and embrace it, and don’t look at it as “just an ATM machine,” are the only hope against the growing Islamophobia. She just wants to keep doing her part and leave the rest to the divine grace of God.

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CAIR Press Release

Muslim voters in 2012 US election.

Poll: 85 Percent of Muslim Voters Picked President Obama

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/9/2012) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released the results of an informal exit poll indicating that more than 85 percent of American Muslim voters picked President Obama in Tuesday’s election.

[NOTE: A similar CAIR exit poll in 2008 showed that 89 percent of American Muslim voters picked then-candidate Barack Obama. Two percent of respondents said they voted for Sen. John McCain.]

CAIR’s email survey of more than 650 American Muslim voters indicates that just four percent of respondents cast their ballots for Mitt Romney.

Poll findings:

•    95.5 of the Muslim voters said they went to the polls on November 6.

•    85.7 percent cast their ballots to re-elect President Obama.

•    4.4 percent of respondents said they voted for Mitt Romney.

•    Just over two percent (2.2) of respondents said they voted for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. The same percentage (2.2) of respondents said they voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

{NOTE: More than four percent of respondents declined to say who they voted for.]

•    States with the highest number of survey respondents (in descending order) were California, New York, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Florida, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio.

•    Of those who voted, 8.3 percent said they did so for the first time.

•    41.5 percent said they consider themselves Democrats. A similar number, 40.6 percent, consider themselves politically independent. Only 7.4 percent said they are Republican.

“The fact that more than 95 percent of Muslim respondents went to the polls is a clear indication that they are fully participating in our nation’s political process and are part of the fabric of America,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “Muslim voters in swing states such as Florida, Virginia and Ohio seemed to have played a critical role in tipping the balance in the president’s re-election victory.”

These results support the findings of a pre-election CAIR survey of 500 Muslim voters that rated jobs and the economy, education, health care policy, Medicare and Social Security, and civil rights as the top issues. That survey indicated that 1 in 4 Muslim voters remained undecided about their presidential pick.

“It appears that undecided Muslim voters broke decisively in President Obama’s favor at the polls,” said CAIR National Legislative Director Corey Saylor.

Saylor also expressed appreciation that a number of anti-Muslim candidates were rejected by voters nationwide.

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Whales are the largest animals. The largest whale is the giant blue whale which can reach lengths of 90-100 feet and weight as much as 120-150 tons.  The commonly seen finback whale is the second largest animal to ever appear on earth.

Whales are not fish.  They are in the same group as us–mammals meaning they breathe air, are warm-blooded, give birth to live children, and nurse their babies with milk just as female humans do.

The body of the whale is suited for marine life.  Their bones are soft and spongy, making them light in weight and not very strong for their size. (Isn’t that interesting, you would expect for an animal that big to be very strong.) The bones in a whale’s neck are fused together giving the neck support but, a whale is unable to turn its head.

Unlike humans the whale can’t see straight in front of them and they can’t see as well in the air as it can in water.  Whales have greasy tears that protect their eyes when they dive below 500 feet.

The whale can hear well in water even though it has no outside ears. Just as humans us their legs, arms and feet, whales use their flippers for balance and steering.   Instead of having a tail, a whale has a pair of flukes.  these are horizontal and move up and down as opposed to  fish whose fins move side to side.  The flukes serve as the whale’s propellers.

Whales breathe air and can stay under water between 10-15 minutes.  If a whale becomes frightened or wounded it an stay under water for more than an hour. When the whale comes back up to the top, it breathes or “spouts”.  This spout is carbon dioxide along with warm water vapor.  This breath (Similar to yours on a cold day) is like a water fountain.

Whales are very  sociable and usually travel in groups or school calles “gams” or “pods”.

The “toothed” whales are the largest group in terms of numbers: however they are smaller than the baleens.  these whales feed on fish and large sea animals.  a characteristic of the toothed whale is a single blowhole in the top of its head, instead two.  There is one type of toothed whale, the sperm whale, which can grow to a very big size.  Many legends have been written about this whale, such as Moby Dick.

The “baleens” are smaller in number but large in size than the toothed. These whales are characterized by having two blowholes and huge mouths.  The baleens feed by filtering food, called “krill”, through large sheets of tissue called baleens.  They swim with their mouths open which fill with water.  the krill is screened in as the water is forced out.  Krill growth depends on the seasons, because of this baleens will migrate to areas where the food supply is abundant.

Whales have few enemies other than man.  Men hunt whales for blubber to be make lamp oil.  Today, whales are hunted for such things as; making facial creams, cooking fat and explosives.  Although there has been a ban imposed on the killing of whales, people sometimes ignore the ban and continue to hunt and kill whales.

Cetaceans include the whales, dolphins and porpoises. There are over 75 species of Cetaceans. Whales belong to the order Cetacea (from the Greek word “ketos” which means whale),
Cetaceans have very strong social ties. The strongest social ties are between mother and calf. A social group of whales is called a pod. Baleen whales travel alone or in small pods. The toothed whales travel in large, sometimes stable pods. The toothed whales frequently hunt their prey in groups, migrate together, and share care of their young.

Cetaceans give birth to live young which are nourished with milk from their mothers – they don’t lay eggs. Cetaceans breed seasonally, usually in warm tropical waters, and females usually have one calf every 1-3 years. The gestation times range from 9-18 months. Whale calves can swim at or soon after birth. Mother whales care for their young for an extended period of time, usually at least a year, feeding them milk and protecting them.

Complex whales songs can be heard for miles under the water. The humpback’s song can last for 30 minutes. Baleen whales sing low-frequency songs; toothed whales emit whistles and clicks that they use for echolocation The songs are thought to be used in attracting mates, to keep track of offspring, and for the toothed whales, to locate prey.

Whales are very social creatures that travel in groups called “pods.” They use a variety of noises to communicate and socialize with each other. The three main types of sounds made by whales are clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls.

Clicks are believed to be for navigation and identifying physical surroundings. When the sound waves bounce off of an object, they return to the whale, allowing the whale to identify the shape of the object. Clicks can even help to differentiate between friendly creatures and predators. Clicks have also been observed during social interactions, suggesting they may also have a communicative function.

Whistles and pulsed calls are used during social activities. Pulsed calls are more frequent and sound like squeaks, screams, and squawks to the human ear. Differing vocal “dialects” have been found to exist between different pods within the same whale population. This is most likely so that whales can differentiate between whales within their pods and strangers.
Whales also use their tails and fins to make loud slapping noises on the surface of the water to communicate nonverbally. The sound can be heard for hundreds of meters below the surface and may be a warning sign of aggression or a tool to scare schools of fish together, making them an easier meal.

In the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, NOAA scientists attached sensors to whales in order to track their movement patterns. They hope to learn about the whales’ behavior and communication as well as to observe how human interaction affects their behavior.

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By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded troubled cornerback Aqib Talib, who is currently still suspended due to a violation of the league’s substance abuse policy, to the New England Patriots in exchange for a 2013 fourth-round draft pick. The Patriots also received a 2013 seventh-round pick from the Buccaneers.

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said at his weekly press conference, when asked about Talib. “So we’ll take that as it comes. When he gets here, we’ll deal with it.” “I think he’s a good player,” Belichick later added. Patriots’ defensive coordinator Matt Patricia was also asked about his thoughts on Talib, and what sort of role he could have with the team once he returns from suspension. “I think we’re obviously going to focus on Buffalo and who’s on the team right now, but he’s a good player and when we do get a chance to work with him, we’ll address those issues at the time,” he said at the same press conference.

Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano called the trade in both teams’ best interests. “Just like any move we make, we put a lot of thought into everything we do, and at the end of the day, our main motivation, our sole motivation is what’s best for the organization,” Schiano said via ESPNBoston.com. “With all factors considered, we had an opportunity to make a trade and be compensated in some way, a fourth-round pick. At the end of the day, when we did all of the comparisons and different things, we think this is what’s best for the Tampa Bay Bucs moving forward. That’s really, like I’ve told you guys, every decision is made with the same criteria. …

“I appreciate, the time that I was here, other than this incident that happened when he was suspended, I enjoyed really coaching Aqib,” Schiano continued. “And for me, he’s done a — he worked his tail off. Everybody didn’t play great at times. I didn’t coach great at times. But as far as what he did for us while I was here, and I’ve said it many times, I’m not naive to what happened before, I do appreciate it and I wish him well going forward.”

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By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

Orlando Magic basketball star Hedo Turkoglu underwent surgery early this week for a left hand fracture. Doctors are projecting that Turkoglu will miss a minimum of four weeks, something that would result in him missing 14 Magic games, but Turkoglu told the press, “Hopefully, it won’t be that long.”

The Turkish forward broke the fifth metacarpal bone in his left hand in the Magic home-opener against Denver on Friday, and he underwent surgery that required five screws and a metal plate being inserted into the outside of his hand. And this injury came just eight months after Turkoglu fractured a bone near his eye socket and needed another metal plate and more pins to repair the damage. “It started right here (at the face) and now it’s going down. I really hope that will be the last one,’’ Turkoglu said with a laugh.

Turkoglu was injured in the Magic’s home-opener last Friday against the Denver Nuggets when he took a swipe at a ball with his hand in the third quarter. “After I fouled him, I just thought like it was a hit. Jameer [Nelson] passed me the ball …… but I couldn’t catch it,” … “I was upset. It’s after the first game, on opening night, he said. “It felt like something was wrong. When we went inside and took the X-ray it was obvious that it was broken.’’

Turkoglu is hoping that some intensive rehabilitation will allow him to keep the time away to a minimum. He hopes to do as much cardiovascular work as possible while away so that he’s in shape upon his return. “Right now it’s still swollen, so we’ll have to see how the rehab goes and go from there,’’ Turkoglu said. “We’re trying to do a lot of movement with it so the hand won’t get stiff. And there are some (therapies) for blood movement. I’ll still be able to do conditioning on the bike and lower-body exercises, but I can’t do a lot of running because they don’t want me to move my hand for two weeks until it’s healed 100 percent. I’ll be doing a lot of hand exercises, squeezing stuff and opening up the hand to hopefully decrease the swelling.’’

“I was upset that it happened in the first game and Opening Night. But it’s just part of the job and we have to face these kinds of injuries,’’ Turkoglu said. “I’m just happy for the guys who are doing a great job out there. As long as we share the ball, every night someone different will step up and have a good night. One night it’s been J.J. (Redick) and before it was (Glen) Big Baby (Davis). In our offense, everybody will feel the momentum and have good nights. I’m just really happy for them.’’

Turkoglu’s team-mates were sad to see the turn of events. “That’s my brother from another mother, man,” said point guard Jameer Nelson. “I’ve been with Turk so long. It’s upsetting to see that. He’ll be all right. He’s a trooper and we’ll pick him up.”

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By Brenda Goh and Tom Bill

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Middle Eastern buyers piled into London’s luxury home market in October as they shielded their wealth from political turmoil back home, including the Syrian civil war.
The trend is not new, but a sharp increase in buying last month suggests wealthy citizens in some Middle Eastern countries believe their security is continuing to deteriorate, even as politics become more stable elsewhere in the region.

Buyers from countries including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Jordan spent 50 percent more on London property in October than they did in the same month last year, paying an average 3.5 million pounds ($5.6 million), property consultant Knight Frank estimated.

Internet traffic from the Middle East to Knight Frank’s catalogue of homes in London’s priciest neighbourhoods, such as Mayfair and Knightsbridge, jumped 10 percent in the year to October.

“Things are precarious between Israel and its neighbours and the turmoil in Syria is frightening,” said Andrew Langton, chairman of high-end estate agent Aylesford International.

“People are wondering ‘where next?’…They realise they had better find somewhere else to live.”

London’s relatively stable political climate and transparent legal and financial systems have made it a target for many overseas investors looking to park their wealth. Prices for the best homes have risen 52 percent from a post-credit crisis low in March 2009.

The city’s attraction among Middle Eastern buyers heightened after the Arab Spring uprisings last year, which toppled governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, and it has lingered via the civil war in Syria.

Political stability has begun returning to some countries, such as Egypt since June’s election of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi. But the latest London home buying figures suggest outflows of money may be increasing from some other nations.

In October, Lebanon’s intelligence chief was killed in a car bombing that the country’s political opposition has blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Late last month Jordan said it had foiled an al Qaeda plot to bomb its capital.

A collapse of Iran’s rial currency in late September and early October, triggered by Western economic sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear programme, may have accelerated capital flight from that country.

“Events such as the Arab Spring and the Syrian conflict have created more instability and uncertainty and you see greater demand from people looking for safe haven assets,” said Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s head of residential research.

High-profile buyers this year include Egyptian mobile network billionaire Naguib Sawiris, according to two people with knowledge of the transaction; he paid about 37 million pounds for a flat in Knightsbridge, British media reported.

One of London’s most expensive homes currently on the market is a 45-bedroom mansion that belonged to former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri until his assasination in 2005. It is on sale for a price tag of between 200 and 300 million pounds, property agents said.

As overseas buyers flee political strife at home and protect themselves from reprisals, safety measures such as panic rooms and gun safes have become more popular in new high-end London homes.
Luxury development One Hyde Park has panic rooms and bulletproof windows. The project was financed by a joint venture that includes a company owned by the prime minister of Qatar.

In addition to homes, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds such as the Qatar Investment Authority have spent billions of pounds on offices and shops in London, including the development of Britain’s tallest skyscraper, the Shard.

Qatar was the top sovereign wealth buyer of European property in the 12 months to August, spending 3.5 billion euros ($4.6 billion) on eight deals including the London Olympic athletes’ village and a mall on Paris’ Champs Elysees, data from research firm Real Capital Analytics showed.

Some market participants, such as Development Securities , have warned that overseas demand for London’s luxury homes could be hit hard when demand for the city’s safe haven role eventually eases.

A May report by the property developer warned that London luxury home prices could halve if the euro zone broke up, since the appeal of sterling might disappear as weaker European currencies created bargains elsewhere.

The love affair between the global super-rich and London property is also at risk as the British government considers increasing taxes on owners of the most expensive property, tapping into a public mood of resentment toward the wealthy.

But Bailey said Middle Eastern investors had become a fixture in the London market.

“For the last two years people have asked, when would this end, and it hasn’t done – it’s actually been pretty strong. So it’s difficult to see when it would end.”

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By FB Ali

The recent protests in the Muslim world against the United States (including many violent ones) on account of an amateur film have once again raised the issue of the causes behind such strong reactions, and what can be done to avoid them. While such deliberations are doubtless occurring behind the closed doors of policy-making chambers, comment has also proliferated in the media and in think-tanks. The actions recommended range all the way from acting tough to being more sensitive to the sensibilities of other cultures. However, the first step in any sensible policy-making or intelligent debate and comment should be to understand the causes underlying the problem.

There are some 1.7 billion Muslims in the world. Their homelands stretch all the way from the Atlantic across Central and North Africa to the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and on to the Indonesian islands in the Pacific. They encompass many different races and nationalities, and speak many languages. But beneath this vast diversity they share certain common features that make them a single community, especially in their own view.

The first of these common features among the world’s Muslims is their allegiance to Islam. The religion Muslims practice in different regions often varies in details of ritual and even of dogma, but what is common to them all is their commitment to the ideal of Islam, as well as their avowal of the fundamental tenets of the faith that include certain core beliefs and practices.
A second common feature is their shared cultural base. While the culture of Muslims in different parts of the world varies based on their historical environment and the way it has developed, all these cultures share the same bedrock of certain traits derived from what might be called Muslim culture. This has descended from the earliest Muslims and is heavily tinged with their Bedouin culture, fostering such personal traits as individualism, self-respect bordering on touchiness, courage and fortitude, endurance, generosity and hospitality. This basic culture also encourages such collective values as loyalty to the group, sacrifice to preserve the group and its honour, and conservatism.

A third common feature is their recognition of Muslims throughout the world as one community (the Ummah). For them this is not just a figure of speech, or even an intellectual position, but a deeply felt belief. Every Muslim feels himself to be part of this community, and thus connected to each of its members, wherever they may live. Good or ill fortune befalling any part of the community is felt by other Muslims as if it had happened to them or their family.

A fourth common feature among Muslims worldwide is their antipathy to the West. This has nothing to do with the dictates of their religion (as some with vested interests would like people to believe), but is rooted in their history, specifically their feeling of having always been at war with, or under attack by, the West. These wars began soon after the rise of Islam with the conflict with the Byzantine Empire that lasted from the 7th to the 11th centuries. There followed the successive Crusades against the Muslims during the 12th and 13th centuries, while the destruction of the Muslim states in Spain in the Reconquista went on from the 8th to the 15th  centuries. The 14th and 15th centuries saw the wars between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. From the 17th century the era of European colonialism bloomed and most of the Muslim world was taken over and brought under Western rule, remaining under subjugation well into the 20th  century.

While the details of these earlier conflicts are known only to the educated, they reside in the collective memory that colours the attitudes of succeeding generations. However, several generations of Muslims now living have personally experienced the eras of colonialism and/or post-colonialism. Those who lived through the former not only experienced the humiliation of living under foreign Western rule but also felt their culture to be under attack. The ending of colonial rule often exacerbated old wounds. The botched handover of power by the British in the partitioned Indian subcontinent led to horrendous killings and displacements. In Algeria about a million Algerians died in the war to oust the French. After the Second World War the Dutch waged war for several years against the people of Indonesia in an attempt to re-establish their colonial rule.

In the post-colonial era Muslim countries found themselves caught up in the Cold War, unwilling pawns in what they saw as a Western conflict. Their leaders were often manipulated by the West to serve its own interests, while they neglected the welfare of their own people. The few who tried to assert their independence were slapped down (like Nasser in Egypt and Mossadeq in Iran). Meanwhile, Muslims were still under attack. The Israelis, with Western backing, took over Palestinian lands, and then defeated the Arabs in successive wars, taking over more of their lands. The Soviet Union decimated Afghanistan (and, later, Chechnya). Then came George Bush’s Great War on Terror which destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan (again!) with the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims. In addition, the recent development of worldwide communications has unleashed what many Muslims regard as an assault on their culture and its values by Western culture, a battle in which they are losing many of their young people.

It is this sense of conflict with the West and aggression by it against Muslims for centuries that underlies the almost universal antipathy felt towards it by Muslims. The United States, as the current leader of the Western world, now attracts to itself this suspicion and animosity, solidified by its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan’s tribal areas, and its military and economic dominance of many Muslim lands. (Many Americans who have had dealings with Muslims might be surprised to read of this general sense of animosity because they have not encountered it in their interactions with individual Muslims. The reason for this is that the average Muslim that Americans are likely to encounter is usually discerning enough not to blame individual Americans for the policies and actions of their country, and interacts with them mainly on the basis of their personal attributes and attitudes).

This latent hostility makes it easy for political and religious leaders in the Muslim world, if it serves some purpose of theirs, to arouse people against the US and the West. They can do this using even relatively flimsy reasons, but need no excuse when the triggering event is an attack, actual or alleged, against the Prophet of Islam; in fact, in such cases, they have to line up behind the aroused populace to avoid being accused of indifference. People in the West are generally puzzled by the extreme sensitivity displayed by Muslims on this particular issue, and it is worth explaining.

The Prophet (s) plays a special role in Muslim consciousness. Since the laws and details of their religion, as well as the essentials of their culture, are largely based on the Hadith (the reported actions and sayings of the Prophet (s)), he plays a pivotal role in their sense of the religion, personifying it as its perfect practitioner. To attack him is to attack the foundation of their religion.

Prophet (s) is the only entity in Islam that evokes an emotional response in all Muslims. The uniqueness of this emotion adds to its power. To demean and ridicule the Prophet (s) is to strike at the emotional core of being of every Muslim. It is an attack on their sense of identity, on who they are, on the very basis of their existence. (The dynamics at work here are similar to those that cause denial of the Holocaust to be such an extremely sensitive issue for Jewish people. Both are existential issues).

The United States, as the principal power in the world, with its global interests and reach, needs to develop a viable policy of dealing with the Muslim world. Its policy makers (and their supporting cast of numerous advisors, think-tank ‘specialists and experts’, and media commentators) need to first understand what they are dealing with, how the vast majority of Muslims think and feel, what matters to them and why. Without policies based on such a sound understanding the US will continue to encounter the problems and crises that have so far marked its dealings with the Muslim world.

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