Dubai sees surge in number of converts to Islam

From The National, 27 May 2010
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The number of converts to Islam in the emirate has increased rapidly in the past three years as Islamic authorities step up efforts to promote the religion.
Almost 60 per cent of all conversions to Islam tracked by Dubai’s Department of Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities occurred in the last three years, according to statistics obtained by The National.
The majority of the emirate’s new Muslims convert to Islam at the department, while a small number do so at Dubai’s courts.
There has been a steady rise in converts since the body began tracking them in 1996, when it recorded 169 conversions.
In 2006, just over 800 people converted to Islam, and the figure doubled in 2007 to 1,617.
Last year alone, there were 3,043 converts. Huda al Kaabi, the head of the New Muslim section in the department, said: “The numbers are increasing year after year.”
Most conversions were during Islamic seasons like the Haj pilgrimage or when Muslims fast in Ramadan. They also spike when visitors converge on Dubai, primarily during the emirate’s shopping festival.
Government officials attribute the rise to efforts to promote a moderate version of Islam to visitors as well as special programmes that counsel prisoners.
“Dubai is a moderate city where we have a mix of religions and cultures, and visitors see that in the way Muslims treat others in the street,” Ms al Kaabi said.“When foreign visitors come during the Dubai Shopping Festival for example, we intensify our efforts.”
These efforts to draw non-Muslims include distributing brochures and holding lectures and workshops that introduce tourists to Islam and its pillars.
The Government also sends its preachers to visit prisons, where Ms al Kaabi said many are introduced to the teachings of Islam.
Enver Zekaj, senior adviser for education and religious guidance at the department, said: “In Islam, for people who are guilty, the door to repentance is open."
Preachers tell inmates that they still have the opportunity to repent from any sins they committed, Mr Zekaj said, and this helps blunt any desire for revenge within them.
Dubai and Sharjah began sending preachers to prisons in 2002. But the practice raises concerns over how appropriate it is to preach Islam to non-Muslims and whether it detracts from society’s acceptance of other religions.
Ms al Kaabi insists the decision on whether to convert is up to the individual. “Religion is a choice, this is an introduction only,” she said.
Mr Zekaj said: “We invite people to discover Islam, we do not focus that they should convert because guidance is from Allah.”
Jihad Hashim Brown, the director of research at the Tabah Foundation, who delivers the Friday sermon at the Maryam bint Sultan Mosque in Abu Dhabi and is a columnist for The National, said it was not a concern since there is little active proselytising for Islam.
“I’m not aware of any significant proselytisation in Dubai and definitely not Abu Dhabi,” he said.
Mr Brown said that chaplains of different religions provide spiritual and moral counselling to prisoners and combat troops in the West. “I wouldn’t say sending chaplains to the jail is anything out of the ordinary,” he said.
Islam enjoys a moderate image in the UAE because its practice “is not driven by secondary objectives like political or sectarian motivations”, he said. “Islam in the UAE is ideology-free.”
Mr Brown said part of the reason for a rise in converts is that non-Muslims will scrutinise Islam when it is exposed to bad publicity, such as terrorist attacks by Muslims.
“Every time international attention is directed towards Islam, even bad publicity, people are going to want to find out what Islam is all about,” he said.
He said there were spikes in conversions to Islam after the September 11 attacks, and more people converted to Sunni Islam after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Most of Dubai’s converts are labourers and maids, but Ms al Kaabi said the group is diverse, including managers and priests.
To embrace Islam, a non-Muslim who visits the department sits through an explanation of the religion’s five pillars: testimony, prayer, fasting, alms, and pilgrimage to Mecca.
Government clerics then answer questions the convert has, such as ones comparing Islamic beliefs to those of other religions. The clerics’ languages include Arabic, English, Tagalog, Urdu, Tamil and Russian. The individual then fills out a certificate, formally embracing Islam.
Many choose to enrol in post-conversion courses detailing the different aspects of Islam.
Dubai does not track the number of Muslims converting to other religions, which, technically, is not allowed in Islam. It is also not allowed to proselytise other religions.

Iran: Kashan-Qom-Tehran

Our day started with a visit to the Fin Gardens in Kashan. It is a wonderfully restful place to visit with many pools and fountains which are fed by an underground spring. There is an open 2 storey pavilion which was built for Shah Abbas I and is 400 years old while behind it is another smaller pavilion which is relatively new being only 200 years old. Also in the grounds is a large bathhouse best known in Iran as the place where a former prime minister and education reformer, Amir Kabir, was murdered in 1848.
From the Fin Gardens we drove to Qom, the most holy city for Shia Muslims as it contains the Nazrat-e Masumeh shrine, the grave of Fatimeh, the sister of the 5th Imam. Times have changed; when I was in Iran in 1978 access to Qom was forbidden to non-Muslims and at that time there were signboards on the highway informing non-Muslims that they could not go within 5 miles of the holy city and there was a special bypass on the highway that skirted the city. Nowadays there is access to Qom but travellers must dress conservatively, act discretely and enjoy whatever level of access may be given to them ie sometimes photography is ok, sometimes its not. Ayatollah Khomeini lectured in Qom before his exile as the city is a theological centre for Shia Islam with numerous colleges and madrassah. On the streets of Qom the women were 100% wearing chador and to get into the Hazrat-e Masumeh shrine I had to borrow one. A chador is like a large piece of bedsheet that's worn over the head and falls loosely to the ground. It's held closed across the front of the body by one hand or in some cases by the teeth. Give me an abaya any day!
Inside the shrine we were able to take some photos and then we were invited in to the majlis to meet Mullah Hosseini. Mullah Hosseini had spent the last 20 years or so living in Dubai and he had been a member of the 'clergy' at the Jumeirah Mosque. The Mullah speaks perfect English and, while his secretary took copious notes, he discussed Islam's relationship with the nations of the west, western perceptions and prejudices against Islam in general, Iran's face to the world and inter-Islamic relations. A fascinating discussion and a memorable experience. After the serious discussion was over we talked about Dubai. The Mullah knew Ravis restaurant well and he confessed that he misses Lal's supermarket in Satwa.
From Qom it was a long drive into Tehran. Not in distance but in time. Everything anyone has ever said about Tehran traffic being wild,demented uncontrolled, gut wrenching and terrifying is true. At one point Jess and I could no longer watch and we were highly mature, shut our eyes and hid under our coats. I cannot begin to describe the sheer terror of being a passenger in a car in Tehran. Jess and I were in the backseat without seatbelts as they're only mandatory for front seat passengers but poor Colin, he may have had the seatbelt but he also had a closer view of the mayhem that was going on around us. Except for when he put his hat over his face because he couldn't handle it any more!
In the evening while Colin went out to buy sharwarmas, Jess and I went for a walk around the area just to window shop. Our walk involved crossing the road several times and I'd figured that the Cairo technique of crossing one lane at a time, checking for injuries and then crossing the next lane as so on until reaching the far shore, seemed to be the best approach. Eeek, it was at this point that I discovered that since being knocked over by the stupid Nissan Sunny on a Dubai pedestrian crossing, I'm not so gung-ho about traffic. I stood cowering on the roadside, Jess was in 'let's do this thing' zone so she was ready to tackle the challenge. A local couple came along to cross the road, we quickly put them between ourselves and the oncoming traffic and following their lead we safely negotiated the first crossing. The subsequent times we crossed on our own with one of us saying "I'm scared Mum, I don't want to do this......" and that was me!
Anyway we made it back safely to the hotel, ate the largest shawarmas in creation and tomorrow we have a full day seeing the sights of Tehran.

Fighting prejudice: Prominent scholar slams stereotyping of Muslims

Source: ArabianBusiness.com 5 September '09
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A prominent scholar has lambasted the stereotyping of Islam and Arab culture by fear-mongering media, according to a report.
American Muslim scholar Mohammad Bashar Arafat also urged for prejudice-free attitudes towards Muslims and Arabs that are not based on the acts of certain Muslims, newswire WAM said.
“Islam is a faith that stresses generous and peaceful co-existence, respect, kindness and love, and its teachings instruct living peacefully and generously with others," said Arafat, founder and president of the Maryland-based Civilizations Exchange and Cooperation Foundation (CECF).
He was speaking at an iftar banquet hosted by the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi this week.
The Syrian-American scholar suggested that the media in the west, and in other parts of the world, were of little help in creating the conditions for the much-needed dialogue.
He added that the election of Barrack Obama as a president of the USA had reverberated across national boundaries and in itself stands proof to the fact that the media hype about Islam was responsible for refueling misconceptions about Islam, and for that matter, about the Middle East and America.
The fact according to Arafat is that Islam is about fostering cooperation rather than confrontation and that America was stereotyped as a dangerous place that is full of crime, WAM added.At the heart of the Arab Islamic culture and American culture, both encompasses dialogue and openness to others, the scholar added.
"I don’t believe in the clash of civilizations," he said calling for counteracting these "mistaken theses" through dialogue and and openness to others which are at the heart of the Arab Islamic culture as well as the American culture.
"In this regard, the UAE, with its huge cultural diversity and dominant tolerance, would be a perfect country to lead the efforts to build bridges and better understanding between the East and the West."

A fundamentalist Christian, a Muslim, and an Orthodox Jew walk into a swimming pool...The Burkini Debate

I didn't think I'd live long enough to see the day that a woman would be punished for wearing too many clothes or being too modest - but the day has arrived.
I remember the hubbub back in the 60s when Jean Shrimpton wore a skirt with a hemline above the knee to a race meeting in the UK where the queen was in attendance, oh the outrage, the shock and horror. And now we have the complete opposite in the recent display in France of heat (but not much light) when a woman was evicted from a public swimming pool for wearing a "burkini". Basically, a burkini (a play on the words 'burka' and 'bikini')is just a lightweight wet suit with a loose top and a long cap that covers head and neck. Speaking as someone engaged in a constant battle with skin cancers I think the maximum coverage it offers sounds like a great idea.
The outrage baffles me. What's the issue? Its nothing to do with Islam specifically, why should any woman who feels comfortable being more covered in public, be penalised for that? Questions of hygiene are spurious.
The desire for modest clothing is found not only amongst Muslim women but also Jewish women and female members of conservative Christian groups as discussed in this link from the Anchorage Examiner, referred to in the title of this piece.
Not everyone wants to wear a microscopic swimsuit in public. I like boardies and a teeshirt, that's the way it is and nobody is going to make me front up in public in a cozzie designed for a wafer thin 17 year old! And this is one of the aims of the modest swimsuit designers, to provide a range of clothing that enables more conservative women or *any* women who prefers not to display acres of flesh in public to enjoy the recreation offered at a pool or the beach, to participate in swimming as a recreational activity or just enjoy time in the water playing with their kids.
There are numerous websites for vendors of modest clothes and swimwear that you might like to visit to see what's available. You may also find the story of Shereen Sabet, a keen scuba diver, a Muslim and founder of Splashgear interesting.

And on the same note, how is it that the smaller the bikini, the more it costs?
Article source: Gulf News
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It's simply called women's conservative swimwear - a line of fashion clothing that, as industry players put it, is all about giving women a choice.
Given the Middle East's largely conservative background, it may be understandable that fashionable swimwear has not been commonly associated with the region's women, even in a popular beachfront destination such as the Gulf. This may also explain why designers of modest clothing apparel have not been as aggressive in promoting such products compared with the more liberal designs.
But as fashionable, conservative attire continues to evolve, designers catering to this niche segment discover that more women are now embracing this type of clothing.
"I'm very confident," says Dubai-based fashion designer Jenny Rose Nicholson, describing the prospects of her "MyCozzie" line of swimwear, which is inspired by the cultural sensitivities of the region.
"It has already picked up within the retail industry and we're stocking very large retail outlets," she said.
Farhana Farooq, creative director of Farashati, a retailer of conservative clothing, agrees.
"I have always been aware of women who experience a dilemma between fashion and values. I personally feel this dilemma is market-induced since fashion houses tend to concentrate only on liberal styles," she says.
"Currently, the only option conservative women have is to layer their clothes - which isn't just uncomfortable but also offers them minimal fashion options - even if they are ready to pay the price for it.
The gap we're discussing has always existed in the market - whether in the Middle East or otherwise. Farashati has been created to give these women the option of choice," Farooq adds.
The Middle East has been a particularly key growth area for the industry, with the region's immense potential market of Muslim women and a growing retail industry.
Nicholson's foray into the modesty swimwear segment started four years ago when a Saudi princess commissioned her to create a swimsuit that would preserve her modesty and was suitable for her to exercise while she was pregnant. The positive response of the Saudi princess to Nicholson's three-piece Lycra and polyester bodysuit convinced the business-minded mother of the huge potential of the product.
"We just decided to expand the range to offer it to everybody. Our main idea was to offer our customers the choice of being able to cover fully, three-quarters or even short-sleeves - it's about giving women a choice," Nicholson said. "Now we have a huge following and we are bringing more and more items into the market."
Fashion and modesty, however, are not the only key selling points of modest swimming apparel, notes Nicholson.
"We offer 90 per cent UV protection," she says. "It's the highest available in the market." Nicholson's collection also offers chlorine resistance and a rapid dry feature, which allows the swimwear to dry within 10 minutes after coming out of the water.
The increased interest and the boost in market demand in conservative swimming apparel within the Middle East, especially in the Gulf region, and all over the world may have also been influenced by a recent incident in France, where Nicholson's conservative swimwear took the spotlight.
A 35-year-old mother named Carole was thrown out of a public swimming pool in France for wearing MyCozzie swimwear, which she had bought in Dubai earlier this year.
The costume was labelled as "unhygienic" by French authorities, who banned its use at public swimming pools. "First of all, my swimwear is not unhygienic. My swimwear is made out of the exact fabrication as anyone else's swimsuit. So I have no idea where they based that decision," said Nicholson.