Tag Archives: UAE

Al-Azhar, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, History, Islam, Islamic History, UAE, Uncategorized, Wahhabi

Grand Ayatollah of Al Azhar Gets His Just Reward on the Gulf………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
Qatari daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports that His Excellency the ‘Great Imam’ shaikh of Al-Azhar went to Dubai last week by private plane. He was to receive the Dubai Holy Quran International Prize (WTF that be). He is reported to have received the award as “Islamic Personality of the Year” as a reward for his efforts in the service of Islam (WTF they be). It does not say if he is rewarded for siding with the military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood presidency of Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, nor if he was awarded for siding with Hosni Mubarak during the uprising of 2011. As I noted in a recent post here, he was bound to win the prize.

This is news to most people, the fact that now Shaikh Dr. Al Tayeb calls himself the “Great Imam”, or is it the “Grand Imam”? Apparently the Al Azhar bureaucracy and its hierarchy are now copying some of the Shi’a (Shi’ite if you prefer) titles like Grand Ayatollah, etc. It is now not too fat-fetched that Dr. Shaikh Al Tayeb will pop out some day with the title “Grand Ayatollah” of Al Azhar, possibly earned from one of them ubiquitous online for-profit theology colleges.

Now what would their Wahhabi allies and financiers in Riyadh think of all this? A Grand Ayatollah leading Al Azhar, just as its original creators of the Fatimid Dynasty had intended? Thus undoing the military coup of Salah El Din Al Ayyoubi (Saladin) who overthrew his Fatimids bosses and benefactors long before Al Sisi overthrew his Morsi boss and benefactor. Saladin did atone for it later by liberating Jerusalem from the European barbarians. No wonder there are complaints, warnings, and fears about the spread of Shi’ism in Egypt. No wonder the military regime and its Salafi and Wahhabi-Liberal allies ban Bahrain activists and Iranian tourists from coming to Egypt. It can be risky. Look, even the recently Wahhabi-ized Al Azhar shaikhs are adopting Shi’a titles now. Soon they might start allowing Shi’a mosques and Husseiniyyas all over Cairo. Who knows, some day we might see Al Sisi playing Shimr, or maybe even Al-Hurr, in a re-enactment a Shi’a passion play about the Battle of Karbala.

And our princes and pals on the Persian-American Gulf had thought their man Al Sisi had come to power and was generously rewarded in order to stop all that.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Asinus Asinum Fricat, Culture, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Solar System, UAE, United Arab Emirates

The Arab King and the Functionary: Cultural Personalities of the Solar System including Uranus……..

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter           “asinus asinum fricat………..”

“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has been chosen as the cultural personality of the year by the Sheikh Zayed Book Award team. Dr Ali bin Tamim, secretary general of the awards, said the decision to choose King Abdullah came as a result of his many cultural achievements…………..”

“Last year, Dr Sheikh Ahmad Al Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar mosque in Egypt, was recognised as the cultural personality of the year. An academic and researcher, he was praised for his role in adopting the moderate path and encouraging a culture of tolerance, dialogue and protection of the civil society. Dr Al Tayyeb…………”

Honorable Dr. King Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines has been chosen by Shaikhs Bin Al-Nahayan as the Cultural Personality of the year 2014. It doesn’t say if he is the cultural personality of Abu Dhabi only or of the whole United Arab Emirates (plus Saudi Arabia of course). Or maybe the cultural personality of the Gulf GCC. I suspect he was chosen as cultural personality not only of the Arab World, but of the whole wide wonderful world. To wit, the cultural personality of our planet (that would include our moon as well). Could be the cultural personality of our solar system, unless someone discovers intelligent life on one of our neighbors, possibly Uranus and preferably NOT pronounced the two syllable American way.

As for last year’s winner, Dr. Shaikh Ahmad Al Tayeb of the once venerable Al-Azhar, he was bound to win the prize, given his services to Hosni Mubarak as a functionary of his National Party. And given his political sectarian services to the petroleum princes and potentates in the past two years.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. The fun has just begun. Next year’s almost certain winner will be El Presidente Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi. Surely he has earned it in both Abu Dhabi and Riyadh………..

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Economics, Egypt, GCC

Will Tony Blair get The Prize for Advising Sisi on the Economics of Counter-Revolution?……..

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge “business opportunities” to those involved, the Guardian has learned. The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt’s elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on “economic reform” in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo – a decision criticised by one former ally. The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt’s crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors’ conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…………..”

Mr. Blair, the Old New Labor Neoconservative leader, has a knack for attracting dictatorial and oligarchy talent. Not only does he find them, but he can also press the right buttons on them. You can say if you were rude and crude, which I am not, that he knows how to find their G-spot. From the Persian Gulf to Central Asia and North Africa, he has been advising them and lobbying on their behalf. Remember his famous squashing of British Serious Frauds Office (SFO) investigation into the $2 billion bribe paid by BAE Systems to Saudi Prince Bandar for a weapons deal? Remember his dealings with the Lat Colonel Gaddafi on behalf of J P Morgan? All these and more were IOUs that he collected from the potentates.

All that and his saying the right words, his incessant warmongering in the Middle East, from Syria through to Iran and beyond. The kind of talk that makes the Wahhabi princes and their Salafi allies salivate at the prospect of American boys and girls going to war on their behalf.

Well, like yet another bad dream he is back in the Middle East, after years of pretending to be looking into the Palestinian-Israeli issue but achieving nothing. He has been selected by the Saudi and Emirati and other Gulf overlords of Egypt to advise the newest strongman of Egypt on the ‘economy’. Who knows, maybe Tony will get a Nobel Prize in Economics: anyone who can solve or reduce or ease Egypt’s economic problems would deserve the prize. And if he doesn’t, there is always the King Whatishisface and Shaikh Whatishisass prize as consolation.

And you know what I think? I think we will see riots back on the streets of Cairo, once the people realize that they have been robbed of ll what they thought they had gained in 2011. That they have been led by their political leaders and opinion-makers on a circle back to where they started in January 2011. That what they experienced has not been a revolution but a cruel hoax.

(FYI: Here is what I tweeted when I read about it last night: ” Oh sh-t, oh sh-t, oh sh-t…………. hired to advise Generalisimo Al on economic matters. Poor Egypt………” )

 

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Economics, GCC, Labor, Qatar, Trafficking, United Arab Emirates

Middle East Focus: Asian Dreams and Labor Nightmares on an Asian Gulf………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“He could hardly wait to leave Qatar. Ganesh has promised himself to never again set foot in the desert. On this spring evening, though, Ganesh’s trip back home still lies before him. He is sprawled out exhausted on his bed on the outskirts of Doha after finishing his shift. The room is just 16 square meters (172 square feet) — and provides shelter to 10 workers. With the fan broken and the window sealed shut with aluminum foil, the air is thick and stuffy…………. On the map, the area is simply labeled “industrial zone.” But it is home to the thousands of faceless workers, the place where they eat and sleep. In Ganesh’s building, 100 workers are housed on three floors, far away from the glittery hotels in the city center. They live on the edge of a dream that the sheikhs want to make reality……………….”

The same also applies to laborers from other places, like Egypt and the Sub-continent and East Africa. Temporary foreign laborers form about 90% of Qatar’s population: almost the same percentage that they form of the population of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). So you see why they are indispensable to these countries. Not only do these foreigners work on creating buildings and roads, on the supply side: they are also needed to create the demand for the goods and services. They are needed to buy much of the consumer goods the local merchants import, they are needed to transfer in remittances billions of dollars that keep the local banks operating, and foreigners are needed to fill these buildings that are owned by the princes and potentates and their business allies. Otherwise the newly erected towns between Doha and Abu Dhabi will look like ghost towns; they did not exist a couple of decades ago.

Cheers

mhg

[email protected]

GCC, Persian-American Gulf, Salafi, UAE

UAE: Suspicious New Emirates Opposition go Deeply Wahhabi and Sectarian……

        

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter 

A “suspicious” new UAE opposition group now calls itself Emirates Freedom Movement (its Twitter ID is @Emirate_Freedom). In Arabic the group are: حركة احرار الامارات . It is not clear how large it is, since locals will be wary (actually fearful) to follow it on the Internet. Most likely it is a small group for now since Wahhabi Salafism has not been popular in the UAE.

It has just issued its manifesto, which is NOT fully very freedom loving or reforming. On the contrary it is extreme Wahhabi Salafi. Some good early goals listed by this group include: release all “reformist” political prisoners, justice, distribution of oil wealth equally….. 

Then the true character of this “opposition” group shows up as they seek to repress and ban “others” with the following demands: 

  • Expulsion of all “enemies of Islam” from UAE. Probably meaning here expelling non-Muslims (Christians, Hindus, Budhists, etc) who are a large majority of UAE residents. The term “enemies of Islam” here seems to mean “enemies of Salafism”. It goes beyond that to take an extreme Wahhabi meaning with their next demand:
  • End all Safawi (Safavi) practices in UAE. Safawi is a favorite Wahhabi Salafi derogatory term for Shi’as (and it is often used by some Muslim Brotherhood types as well). Even the clownish Chief of Dubai Police (Dhahi Khalfan) has used this term in his personal tweets in the past. This means that like all Salafis, and like many Wahhabi liberals from the Persian-American Gulf to North Africa, they are demanding that Shi’a religion practices be banned.
P.S.: Could this group be a plant by the rulers to confuse matters and taint the ‘opposition’? It could, it could.

Cheers
mhg 

[email protected]

GCC, Oman, UAE

Sahel Oman: Coast of Oman and Rewriting History in the Gulf of Mercenaries…….

Leave a comment


      

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
Rewriting history and faking history has become a habit in our native region, especially in the Gulf GCC states. But it is a good thing that ‘facts’ are stubborn, mostly. This week’s political noise about an Al-Jazeera documentary film on the Coast of Oman is a good example.

When we were children growing up on the hot shores of the Gulf (Gulf of Mercenaries? Persian-American Gulf?) we knew about Sahel Oman (ساحل عمان) from readings and from family members. We called the whole coast south of Bahrain and Qatar by one name: Sahel Oman (Coast of Oman). We had student colleagues and friends from what is now the UAE and we called them ‘Omani students’: they did not seem to object. Dubai existed as Dubai, a commercial center, as did Al Sharjah and maybe Ras Al Khaimah. Abu Dhabi existed, but barely. We never heard or read about Abu Dhabi or some of the other emirates. Maybe we were ignorant, but we called the region: Sahel Oman. As did the other Arab media whenever they paid attention to the Arab side of the Gulf beyond Bahrain and Kuwait. In those days Bahrain was were the political action and political news were: even then the people were in constant rebellion against the absolute Al Khalifa clan and their British advisers (how some things never change!). Not much has changed in Bahrain: except for the unwelcome intrusion of Saudi troops and other imported foreign mercenaries shoring up the regime.
Now this recent recent documentary film on Al-Jazeera about Sahel Oman has riled up the UAE (mainly Abu Dhabi), and some of their Saudi allies are also making the right supportive noises. Saudi mouthpiece Asharq Alawsat (owned by Crown Prince Salman) had its obedient chief editor blast the film as a Qatari insult to the United Arab Emirates. The film is reportedly non-political, although the Qataris must have suspected that it would upset up the ruling potentates of the UAE who fancy themselves the heirs of the Greek-Persian-Roman-Babylonian-Umayyad-Abbasid empires (now they can add ancient Egypt through their share of the Gulf investment in Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi). 

 

Cheers

mhg[email protected]