The battle to save the Arabian leopard from extinction in the wild can be called many things: crucial, worthy, pivotal and righteous. Just don’t call it glamorous.
I’m learning just how unglamorous while sheltering in the shade of a thorn-covered tree in a dusty wadi in the Dhofar mountains of southern Oman, a range that forms the critically endangered species’ last stronghold after decades of retreat from a habitat that once stretched as far as Palestine and Mussandam.
Alongside me are eight enthusiasts who have each paid US$2,100 (Dh6,785) to the non-profit conservation group Biosphere Expeditions to spend their holiday volunteering in a research project. Leading us is Tessa McGregor, a big cat specialist who is doing her best to lower our expectations about what we will encounter over the next two weeks because this is a research project, not a wildlife-spotting tour.
The chance of actually seeing a leopard are about as close to zero as it’s possible to get, and whether or not our contribution will help avert permanent extinction in the wild is uncertain.
Tessa then describes what we’ll be collecting from the wadis and mountains of the western Dhofar mountains through a series of polite euphemisms: “sign”, “scat” and “droppings”.
We will also be monitoring motion-triggered cameras posted in remote locations, doing an analysis of animal tracks, conducting population censuses of prey animals and interviewing local villagers – a process that involves tea and hospitality while asking about recent wildlife sightings – but she wanted us under no illusion about one of the key roles: “You’ll come back with bags and bags of scat.”
We get instructions on what the different species’ scat looks like and even “scat etiquette”, which involves wearing gloves while bagging suspected leopard droppings to avoid contamination.
I remember thinking to myself at this point that this is truly one of the oddest holidays I’ve ever been on. But for all the lack of glamour, everything we are about to do has a purpose.
The leopard scat, for example, will be subjected to DNA analysis to ensure that it is leopard and, if so, how many different animals there are and the degree to which they are related to one another. The gloves are to ensure that we don’t contaminate it with our own DNA.
None of this seems to faze those around me. They run the gamut of demographics ranging from an octogenarian Californian retiree who has done dozens of these kinds of trips to a fresh-faced Australian graphic designer on her first. Their conservation experience ranges from never having been camping before to spending months in the field doing research.
But almost all of them voice a similar message about why they’ve travelled to Salalah to join this expedition: they want to give something back to conservation rather than having a more traditional holiday.
For the last 11 years Biosphere Expeditions has provided the logistics so that volunteers like these could help research teams doing conservation work around the world without the former draining scarce funds from the latter.
In this case, they’re helping the Diwan of the Royal Court, which has taken on the Arabian leopard’s plight as one of its flagship programmes. By providing leaders, transport (Land Rover provided three brand-new LR3s and Shell Oman provides petrol) and a spartan but comfortable base camp (bucket showers and pit toilets but with a talented Bangladeshi cook to provide breakfast and dinner), Biosphere Expeditions provide nearly a dozen helpers to fill in some of the yawning gaps in knowledge.
Thanks to the leopards’ friends in high places in the Omani royal court, their main base in the eastern end of the Dhofar mountains behind Salalah has been turned into the Jebel Samhan Nature Reserve, created specifically to safeguard the leopard’s habitat.
But almost all the information about the leopard is from that area. Our focus is on the western edge of the mountains, closer to the Yemen border, about which very little is known. Here, the terrain varies from barren plateaux featuring camel-ravaged frankincense trees to dry and dusty wadis with occasional waterholes. Closer to the coast, the effect of the seasonal monsoon makes this the most forested part of the Arabian peninsula, and it’s this region which has provided the most promising results about the presence of leopards.
If you go
The package
Biosphere Expeditions’ next Arabian leopard research trips will take place from January 16-28 and January 30-February 11, 2011. The trip costs $2,179 (Dh8,700) per person including all training, accommodation and food, but not international flights. Log on to www.biosphere-expeditions.org/oman or call 0044 870 446 0801.
The flight
Return flights from Abu Dhabi to Salalah, via Muscat, cost from $532 (Dh1,955) including tax, through Oman Air (www.omanair.com)
Tessa, a veteran of big cat research projects ranging from the Sundarban tigers of the Ganges delta to the snow leopards of the Siberian Altai Mountains, explains that this region is crucial to the leopards’ viability.
“Big cats need lots of space. It’s estimated that each one’s territory is 200 square kilometres,” she explains. “Even if you’d protected the whole of Jebel Samhan, it’s too small to have a viable population in the future. They need to be able to go all the way to where we are here.”
The viability of the population is something about which she’s unfortunately already aware through previous research trips. The Arabian leopard is extinct in most of the Hajar mountains that stretch between Musandam and Muscat but a tiny population still clings on in the northernmost section near the UAE-Oman border in Ras al Khaimah and Fujairah.
“In Mussandam, there were some leopards there and we did find some signs of leopard but all the prey animals are gone,” Tessa explains.
“Leopards need ungulates – large prey like ibex and gazelle – but there aren’t any, just feral goats.
“We found some fresh pug (paw) marks and we heard leopard but even if there were two or three, really the population there is finished.
“That makes ungulates so important. Poaching (leopards) isn’t a big big problem but poaching of their prey animals is.”
Tessa does not want to be drawn on total population of the leopards or how many are needed for a sustainable population but other estimates say there are only 200 left in the wild. It’s the second most threatened big cat in the world and is deemed to be critically endangered, one short step away from being deemed extinct in the wild.
In western Dhofar they have very little idea about either the prey animals or indeed the leopards. The project last year found only a few old signs of leopards’ presence, raising the prospect that the population is in steep decline in this part of the range.
Just in case expectations were not already low enough, Tessa raises the prospect of coming back empty-handed from a scat-gathering expedition but insisted that finding nothing is still pivotal information.
“When you’re traipsing around and finding nothing you feel like, ‘What am I doing?’ But it’s very important,” she says.
“Most of the work has still to be done. There’s really no baseline. There are so many unanswered questions.”
It would take a particularly congenial volunteer to enjoy spending their money and holiday proving that the leopards are doomed to functional extinction in the wild, but this year the first group of volunteers found signs only a few days old of several animals resident in a forested area near the Yemen border.
Just how little is known about the Arabian leopard is shown by the belief that they do not scrape trees with their claws to mark their territory, a finding that had to be reversed just two weeks before our trip when the Biosphere volunteers found signs that they did.
The interconnectedness and interdependence of all the animals in the ecosystem are why Tessa spends the first day acquainting us with the tracks and scat of all the animals in the area. Even if we find leopard tracks, the population will be in deep trouble if we find few signs of ibex, hyrax and gazelles. The truth is that tracking is as much an art as a science and it takes time for your eye to adjust to the signs. One of the few similarities of this disparate group is that almost all work in sedentary office jobs and live in cities.
Just how much there was to adjust is demonstrated by Leslie, a previous Biosphere leader who has joined the volunteers as a break before completing her PhD dissertation on reptiles.
Approaching a thorn-laden acacia, she bursts into: “Look! A gecko!” And it takes the rest of us an embarrassing amount of time to even see the thumb-length reptile she’d spotted in seconds, even though we know it’s there and where to look.
And so it is with the leopard sign, where in anything other than ideal conditions, I find myself completely incapable of differentiating between leopard and other pawed creatures like the striped hyena or Arabian wolf. There’s the gnawing concern that the only thing worse than the paucity of information about leopards in this part of the Dhofar is the presence of information which turns out to be untrustworthy.
So far this trip is reinforcing my cynical view about volunteer holidays. Most seemed to involve visits to third-world villages by westerners who do half as much work as the locals and expect twice as much luxury, all the while feeling good about their input while making one-tenth of the contribution they would have achieved by staying at home and donating the money they spent on the tour and their flight.
But after listening longer to Tessa’s explanation of the volunteers’ input, my view softens. Besides creating a new series of ambassadors who will take their message home to Britain, Germany, Australia, Sweden, the US and Oman, there are other effects of our presence. The reality is that the locals begin to look at the issue more seriously if they see a dozen highly paid and qualified westerners in the region putting their time and energy into the local wildlife.
Still my concern about my own tracking ability is such that I’m relieved when we spend the first day visiting a waterhole at the head of our wadi, the location of several of motion-triggered cameras but seemingly too close to the village of Ayuun for there to be much chance of finding signs of the notoriously human-shy leopards.
I’m even more relieved when Tessa is joined by Khalid al Hikmani, who grew up in the mountain villages of the Dhofar and who now works with the leopard protection team as a field officer. Mohammed, a ranger with the Environment Ministry, also joins us.
Khalid is one of two boys who joined the programme through a chance encounter with an Australian who was in the mountains photographing the wildlife, became lost and emerged at their remote village. Both were youths at the time but through him became fascinated by the leopards and, once they’d completed their schooling, joined the Diwan conservation team.
The other youth, Hadi al Hikmani, is away in Britain studying for a BSc in biology, gaining the formal skills to enable him to do his work better.
Khalid’s enthusiasm for his job is demonstrated about 20 minutes into the tour when we reach the site of the first motion-activated camera, sited in a cave perfect for leopards to take shelter from the midday heat while being able to survey their domains.
As we approach, the camera is nowhere to be seen. Previously this camera has captured hunters going past and the fear is they’d stolen it to hide poaching. Khalid and Mohammed’s body language says it all – they seem dejected and downcast until the camera is found lying at the bottom of its mounting post, having been dislodged by an amorous or aggressive porcupine.
It’s taken nine photos since the last visit and the memory card shows the interfering porcupine but also a honey badger, fox and a striped hyena. Corroborating evidence is found in the paw- and hoof-prints in the dust nearby and slowly familiarity allows an increasing confidence in our ability to correctly identify tracks. My concerns about whether we should be here fade.
As we make our way down the wadi bed, every time a twist of the valley provides a new vista Tessa is out with her binoculars scanning the slopes for the presence of ibex and gazelle. As the wadi briefly closes in, Khalid and Mohammed scramble up to precarious ledges to look for leopard paw prints, emerging instead with the skull of a hyrax, a marmot-like animal which is one of the leopard’s prey species. Two more camera sites yield no startling results, and we head back to camp.
Sitting around the fire that evening, reviewing the tally of animals detected is surprising considering the only live mammal we’d seen all day had been a pair of camels. Between the cameras, tracks in the dust, skulls and, of course, scat, we’ve shown the presence of porcupine, striped hyena, Arabian wolf, red fox, Blandford’s fox, Arabian gazelle, Nubian ibex, hyrax, honeybadger and camel.
The finds in the days that follow make those pale by comparison. In an adjoining valley to the wadi in which base camp is located, Tessa finds a ledge bearing an old but clear leopard paw print, the closest sign of leopard to the main wadi. And in that news I begin to understand why volunteering for a conservation campaign can become so compelling.
jhenzell@thenational.ae
Source: The National: Leopard spotting
Friday, 19 February 2010
Monday, 15 February 2010
Jewel sets sail on a tide of history
MUSCAT // When fishermen stumbled across the wreck of a ninth-century sailing dhow off the coast of an Indonesian island more than a decade ago, archaeologists found it laden with 60,000 pieces of rare Chinese porcelain.
The spectacular discovery threw light on an era when the Arab world’s trade ships fanned out across the world, bringing goods from the far corners of Asia and Africa.
Today, that rich maritime heritage will be brought back to life when a reconstruction of a 1,000-year-old ship will set sail from Oman destined for Singapore.
The Jewel of Muscat, an 18-metre dhow weighing 50 tonnes, will trace a famous ancient trade route in a five-month voyage from Oman to the far east.
The vessel has been painstakingly built by Omani ship builders using traditional techniques from the ninth century. No nails were used and planks were sewed together watertight with coconut fibre. The wood is protected by a layer of goat fat mixed with lime, according to the Jewel’s Omani captain, Saleh Said al Jabri.
“We have to follow the local tradition in building the vessel otherwise the whole voyage will have no meaning. Most of the timber those days was imported by Omani sailors from abroad and brought here for construction,” Capt al Jabri said.
The men in charge of finding the right materials were the archaeologists Luca Belfioretti, from Italy, and Tom Vosmer, from Australia. They made trips to Pune in India in search of wood and also to Ghana for the Afzelia Africana timber. Both woods are known for their ability to withstand a battering by rough seas and bad weather, they said.
“The West African and India connection of timber used for the construction of a boat in Oman those days is based on archaeological evidence,” Mr Belfioretti said.
The vessel will depart from the yard where it was built in Qantab, a fishing village near Muscat that is part of Oman’s rich maritime tradition of seafarers setting off across the world on trade missions.
“The overall distance is roughly about 3,000 nautical miles, depending on the wind direction. The vessel will be on the mercy of the wind and will not sail in a straight line,” Capt al Jabri said.
The voyage, sponsored by Oman’s ministry of foreign affairs, came from an idea proposed by Singapore and is being funded by both countries.
The journey was inspired by the ship that went down in the ninth century off Belitung, an island on the east coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, according to Mr Vosmer. The wreck was accidentally discovered by fishermen in 1998 and the Indonesian government gave a German company permission to excavate the wreck. The rich cargo that it was carrying became known as the Tang Treasures.
The German excavators found 60,000 pieces of rare Chinese porcelain when they lifted the ship. International experts who identified the Tang Treasures said they were produced from kilns in what is now the Chinese province of Hunan.
Indonesian authorities in published reports said that the treasures include rare blue and white porcelain, tricoloured glazed pottery from the Tang dynasty and three early Qinghua plates, the best preserved of their kind ever found.
They also said the Arabic inscriptions found on some of the pieces suggested the pottery was produced and transported in the early ninth century, and carbon dating has confirmed this.
The Arabic inscription is a strong indication that the treasures were being exported to Arab countries. The shipwreck itself also revealed much about Arab shipbuilding and navigation from the period. Well-preserved fragments of the ship showed that stitching was used by Arab craftsmen to bind the timber of the hull, the Indonesian authorities said.
Mr Vosmer, a maritime archaeologist based in Muscat, believes the sunken ship was built in Oman and carried the treasure from China for export destined to one of the Arab countries.
Mr Vosmer hopes the Jewel of Muscat will not only publicise Oman’s former maritime greatness but also shed some light on the sunken ship.
“We are looking to discover more about how the original ship was built, how it handled and how it sailed. As well as this, we are hoping to find out what life on board was like and even perhaps why it sank,” Mr Vosmer said.
The Jewel of Muscat’s crew will employ ninth century navigational methods including a technique called Al Kamal, which determines the latitude of the celestial bodies to calculate the distance to a given destination.
Capt al Jabri will have 17 other people on-board, including nine Omani sailors helped by four trainee crew, a couple of technical support personnel, a journalist from the National Geographic magazine, a video cameramen and a photographer.
Capt al Jabri was born in Haramel in Muscat, in his parents’ house just metres away from the beach. He has 23-years of sailing experience, the majority of it working for the Royal Navy of Oman onboard its tall ship, the Shabab Oman. He holds a position of a training officer on the ship, which has sailed around the world several times for international regattas and historic voyages.
“It is not going to be a smooth sailing to Singapore. We expect very rough weather in the Bay of Bengal. It is the one of the most hostile patches of water in the world. It is a journey of perseverance where everybody on-board will live on minimum and basic surroundings during the course of the journey,” Capt al Jabri said.
The vessel will have only a radio for emergency calls and will have no other ships to escort it. Everybody onboard will sleep on bunks and use the same galley and toilet facilities used by ancient Omani mariners. The diet will be primarily dates, dried fish, rice and plenty of coffee served in traditional cups.
The first port of call from Muscat will be India’s Cochin after a month at sea. The crew will break for two to four weeks to carry out maintenance. The trainee crew of different nationalities will be replaced by a new team.
The ship will then sail on the monsoon wind towards Sri Lanka to dock at the south-western port of Galle for another two-week maintenance break. Depending on the monsoon, the journey will take 10 to 14 days.
“Then we will start our sternest challenge of the journey,” Capt al Jabri said, “across the Bay of Bengal. It is not the easiest route and one of the busiest in the world and notorious for its bad weather.”
If all goes well, Capt al Jabri will guide the vessel to Penang in northern Malaysia. “Depending on south-westerly wind and how rough the sailing will be, we expect to reach Penang in three to four weeks. But we are going to stop for only a few days, mostly a week, because we don’t want to miss the monsoon wind blowing towards our next stop in Malacca,” he explained.
The trip to Malacca is expected to last a week and the crew will rest a few days before embarking for their final destination in Singapore. They expect to arrive there in early July.
“The voyage’s schedule will depend on the weather conditions because the ship has no engine and will entirely rely on the monsoon’s winds,” Chris Beggins, the voyage’s project manager said.
The Jewel of Muscat will be placed in a museum in the city state, its final resting place, in accordance with an agreement between Oman and Singapore.
salshaibany@thenational.ae
Source: The National: Jewel sets sail on a tide of history
The spectacular discovery threw light on an era when the Arab world’s trade ships fanned out across the world, bringing goods from the far corners of Asia and Africa.
Today, that rich maritime heritage will be brought back to life when a reconstruction of a 1,000-year-old ship will set sail from Oman destined for Singapore.
The Jewel of Muscat, an 18-metre dhow weighing 50 tonnes, will trace a famous ancient trade route in a five-month voyage from Oman to the far east.
The vessel has been painstakingly built by Omani ship builders using traditional techniques from the ninth century. No nails were used and planks were sewed together watertight with coconut fibre. The wood is protected by a layer of goat fat mixed with lime, according to the Jewel’s Omani captain, Saleh Said al Jabri.
“We have to follow the local tradition in building the vessel otherwise the whole voyage will have no meaning. Most of the timber those days was imported by Omani sailors from abroad and brought here for construction,” Capt al Jabri said.
The men in charge of finding the right materials were the archaeologists Luca Belfioretti, from Italy, and Tom Vosmer, from Australia. They made trips to Pune in India in search of wood and also to Ghana for the Afzelia Africana timber. Both woods are known for their ability to withstand a battering by rough seas and bad weather, they said.
“The West African and India connection of timber used for the construction of a boat in Oman those days is based on archaeological evidence,” Mr Belfioretti said.
The vessel will depart from the yard where it was built in Qantab, a fishing village near Muscat that is part of Oman’s rich maritime tradition of seafarers setting off across the world on trade missions.
“The overall distance is roughly about 3,000 nautical miles, depending on the wind direction. The vessel will be on the mercy of the wind and will not sail in a straight line,” Capt al Jabri said.
The voyage, sponsored by Oman’s ministry of foreign affairs, came from an idea proposed by Singapore and is being funded by both countries.
The journey was inspired by the ship that went down in the ninth century off Belitung, an island on the east coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, according to Mr Vosmer. The wreck was accidentally discovered by fishermen in 1998 and the Indonesian government gave a German company permission to excavate the wreck. The rich cargo that it was carrying became known as the Tang Treasures.
The German excavators found 60,000 pieces of rare Chinese porcelain when they lifted the ship. International experts who identified the Tang Treasures said they were produced from kilns in what is now the Chinese province of Hunan.
Indonesian authorities in published reports said that the treasures include rare blue and white porcelain, tricoloured glazed pottery from the Tang dynasty and three early Qinghua plates, the best preserved of their kind ever found.
They also said the Arabic inscriptions found on some of the pieces suggested the pottery was produced and transported in the early ninth century, and carbon dating has confirmed this.
The Arabic inscription is a strong indication that the treasures were being exported to Arab countries. The shipwreck itself also revealed much about Arab shipbuilding and navigation from the period. Well-preserved fragments of the ship showed that stitching was used by Arab craftsmen to bind the timber of the hull, the Indonesian authorities said.
Mr Vosmer, a maritime archaeologist based in Muscat, believes the sunken ship was built in Oman and carried the treasure from China for export destined to one of the Arab countries.
Mr Vosmer hopes the Jewel of Muscat will not only publicise Oman’s former maritime greatness but also shed some light on the sunken ship.
“We are looking to discover more about how the original ship was built, how it handled and how it sailed. As well as this, we are hoping to find out what life on board was like and even perhaps why it sank,” Mr Vosmer said.
The Jewel of Muscat’s crew will employ ninth century navigational methods including a technique called Al Kamal, which determines the latitude of the celestial bodies to calculate the distance to a given destination.
Capt al Jabri will have 17 other people on-board, including nine Omani sailors helped by four trainee crew, a couple of technical support personnel, a journalist from the National Geographic magazine, a video cameramen and a photographer.
Capt al Jabri was born in Haramel in Muscat, in his parents’ house just metres away from the beach. He has 23-years of sailing experience, the majority of it working for the Royal Navy of Oman onboard its tall ship, the Shabab Oman. He holds a position of a training officer on the ship, which has sailed around the world several times for international regattas and historic voyages.
“It is not going to be a smooth sailing to Singapore. We expect very rough weather in the Bay of Bengal. It is the one of the most hostile patches of water in the world. It is a journey of perseverance where everybody on-board will live on minimum and basic surroundings during the course of the journey,” Capt al Jabri said.
The vessel will have only a radio for emergency calls and will have no other ships to escort it. Everybody onboard will sleep on bunks and use the same galley and toilet facilities used by ancient Omani mariners. The diet will be primarily dates, dried fish, rice and plenty of coffee served in traditional cups.
The first port of call from Muscat will be India’s Cochin after a month at sea. The crew will break for two to four weeks to carry out maintenance. The trainee crew of different nationalities will be replaced by a new team.
The ship will then sail on the monsoon wind towards Sri Lanka to dock at the south-western port of Galle for another two-week maintenance break. Depending on the monsoon, the journey will take 10 to 14 days.
“Then we will start our sternest challenge of the journey,” Capt al Jabri said, “across the Bay of Bengal. It is not the easiest route and one of the busiest in the world and notorious for its bad weather.”
If all goes well, Capt al Jabri will guide the vessel to Penang in northern Malaysia. “Depending on south-westerly wind and how rough the sailing will be, we expect to reach Penang in three to four weeks. But we are going to stop for only a few days, mostly a week, because we don’t want to miss the monsoon wind blowing towards our next stop in Malacca,” he explained.
The trip to Malacca is expected to last a week and the crew will rest a few days before embarking for their final destination in Singapore. They expect to arrive there in early July.
“The voyage’s schedule will depend on the weather conditions because the ship has no engine and will entirely rely on the monsoon’s winds,” Chris Beggins, the voyage’s project manager said.
The Jewel of Muscat will be placed in a museum in the city state, its final resting place, in accordance with an agreement between Oman and Singapore.
salshaibany@thenational.ae
Source: The National: Jewel sets sail on a tide of history
Thursday, 14 January 2010
THE OTHER FRONTIERS OF ARAB NATIONALISM: IBADIS, BERBERS, AND THE ARABIST-SALAFI PRESS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
An article published by the wonderful Dr Amal Ghazal of Dalhousie University, Halifa, Canada will be of interest to Omani scholars and others interested in the history of Oman.
Here is the abstract published in the International Journal of Middle Easter Studies (IJMES): International Journal of Middle East Studies (2010), 42:105-122 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010
doi:10.1017/S0020743809990559
Articles
THE OTHER FRONTIERS OF ARAB NATIONALISM: IBADIS, BERBERS, AND THE ARABIST-SALAFI PRESS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
Amal N. Ghazal c1
Article author query
ghazal an Google Scholar
The historiography of Arab nationalism has tended to concentrate on the secular press from the Mashriq, especially the Cairo–Beirut axis, at the expense of the religious nationalist press and the non-Mashriqi one. There is often an assumption that reliance on the secular press from the Mashriq alone can provide a clear picture of Arab intellectual life and that a proper analysis of that thought can be confined to a few intellectual centers in the eastern Arab world. Although there has never been an explicit claim that such a focus is the end of the story, there have not been enough attempts to look beyond the Cairo–Beirut axis and beyond its secular press organs in search of a broader story of the depth and breadth of Arab nationalism. This article addresses this imbalance by examining an Arabist-Salafi press network that operated between Algeria, Tunisia, Zanzibar, and Egypt and involved members of two sectarian communities, Sunnis and Ibadis. This Arabist-Salafi press network created a public sphere of intellectual engagement in which Salafism and nationalism were interwoven, producing a nationalist discourse transgressing post World War I borders of identity and linking the three layers of nationalism—the territorial, the Pan-Arab, and the Pan-Islamic—together. These layers not only intersected but also legitimized one another.
Correspondence:
Amal Ghazal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; e-mail: amal.ghazal@dal.ca
Here is the abstract published in the International Journal of Middle Easter Studies (IJMES): International Journal of Middle East Studies (2010), 42:105-122 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010
doi:10.1017/S0020743809990559
Articles
THE OTHER FRONTIERS OF ARAB NATIONALISM: IBADIS, BERBERS, AND THE ARABIST-SALAFI PRESS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
Amal N. Ghazal c1
Article author query
ghazal an Google Scholar
The historiography of Arab nationalism has tended to concentrate on the secular press from the Mashriq, especially the Cairo–Beirut axis, at the expense of the religious nationalist press and the non-Mashriqi one. There is often an assumption that reliance on the secular press from the Mashriq alone can provide a clear picture of Arab intellectual life and that a proper analysis of that thought can be confined to a few intellectual centers in the eastern Arab world. Although there has never been an explicit claim that such a focus is the end of the story, there have not been enough attempts to look beyond the Cairo–Beirut axis and beyond its secular press organs in search of a broader story of the depth and breadth of Arab nationalism. This article addresses this imbalance by examining an Arabist-Salafi press network that operated between Algeria, Tunisia, Zanzibar, and Egypt and involved members of two sectarian communities, Sunnis and Ibadis. This Arabist-Salafi press network created a public sphere of intellectual engagement in which Salafism and nationalism were interwoven, producing a nationalist discourse transgressing post World War I borders of identity and linking the three layers of nationalism—the territorial, the Pan-Arab, and the Pan-Islamic—together. These layers not only intersected but also legitimized one another.
Correspondence:
Amal Ghazal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; e-mail: amal.ghazal@dal.ca
An uphill struggle for Omani herdswomen
MUSCAT // Herdswomen in rural areas are struggling to keep their traditional livelihoods as the market for meat and livestock in Oman is increasingly dominated by imports.
With the help of her three younger sisters, Zeena Salah, 36, a herdswoman from Mahut in the al Wusta Region, takes her flock of 250 sheep and goats from their pen to graze in the wadi every day, just 2km from her family home.
Ms Salah said she had been a herdswoman since she was 14, a livelihood she inherited from her mother, who died nine years ago.
In Oman’s rural areas, men often work on their farms growing vegetables and fruits while the livestock rearing is left to women because it is seen as less strenuous work. The farm, said Ms Salah, does not fetch enough money to provide for her extended family.
“So the livestock business makes up for the rest, which is much needed. But in the past five years, the business is being squeezed by traders importing cheap animals from abroad they literally flood the market. Our sales now depends only on rich folk who prefer locally bred livestock because we feed our animals with chemical-free feedstock,” Ms Salah said.
Statistics from the animal wealth department show that about 1.45 million livestock are bred in Oman, a country with a population of about three million people. About 25 per cent of the livestock are sheep, 30 per cent goats and the rest cows and camels.
Traders who import livestock argue that the statistics show there are not enough animals bred in the country to satisfy local demand, especially in the festive seasons.
“In the two Eids, the demand soars to more than a million goats and sheep slaughtered for private people and hotels celebrating the religious occasions,” said Khalfan Marhoobi, distribution manager of the Muscat-based Livestock and Meat Supply Company. “Then there is the daily consumption of meat sold at butchers and supermarkets. Locally bred livestock cannot cater for this demand.”
The key difference between the imported and locally bred meat, however, is the price. “A local live sheep or goat costs 60 Omani rials [Dh595]. You can get the same animals imported abroad from Somalia or Iran each for 40 rials. The difference is about a third of the price,” Hussain al Lawati, a 42-year-old customer, said.
This economic reality has created a thriving market for imported meat and livestock, which is dominated by imports from Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and India, butchers said.
“Butchers in Oman sell only meat imported from abroad because it is cheaper to buy from distributors bringing it from overseas than directly from Omani breeders. I don’t know any distributor supplying meat from local livestock,” Saifullah Khan, a Pakistani butcher in Muscat said.
There are no statistics available to the amount of meat consumed in Oman or total livestock slaughtered, but Mr Khan estimated that only a quarter of locally produced meat finds the market in the country.
“To me, local meat ensures freshness and is free of chemicals usually injected to foreign livestock to make animals fat. Besides, if we buy locally produced meat, we keep alive the tradition started by our ancestors,” Salim al Brashdi, a 36-year-old Omani consumer said.
As for the high price of local livestock, Mr Brashdi suggested the government grant subsidies to herdswomen, the same way farmers and fishermen get free farming and fishing equipment.
“I think something like that to suit herdswomen can be worked out,” Mr al Brashdi said.
Some herdswomen have urged the government to put a cap on the import of livestock or fresh meat from abroad to help them revive their trade but they are yet to approach a government department to file a complaint.
“The government must regulate the meat market and put a levy on imported meat and livestock to protect us. We cannot compete with importers who are dumping the livestock at a cheaper price from abroad,” said Sharifa Farah, 46, a herdswoman in Fanja, a town about 70km from Muscat.
Government officials were not available to comment, but livestock experts blamed local meat distributors for not doing enough to promote locally bred animals.
“Herdswomen rely heavily on selling livestock directly to consumers or they auction the animals in the local souqs in a town’s square. These women are not educated and they only know to sell the way it has always been done for centuries. Distributors need to help by cutting down on imports and promote local meat,” Khamfar Jaalan, 74, a retired ministry of agriculture official, said.
Mr Marhoobi agreed with this assessment but said all meat distributors must be required to sell local meat and livestock.
“What is needed is the compliance of all distributors. After all, the attraction of locally bred animals is that their food is not tampered by chemicals to fatten them up,” Mr Marhoobi said. “Besides, as nationals, we have the obligation to make sure this ancient trade survives.”
salshaibany@thenational.ae
Source: The National: An uphill struggle for Omani herdswomen
With the help of her three younger sisters, Zeena Salah, 36, a herdswoman from Mahut in the al Wusta Region, takes her flock of 250 sheep and goats from their pen to graze in the wadi every day, just 2km from her family home.
Ms Salah said she had been a herdswoman since she was 14, a livelihood she inherited from her mother, who died nine years ago.
In Oman’s rural areas, men often work on their farms growing vegetables and fruits while the livestock rearing is left to women because it is seen as less strenuous work. The farm, said Ms Salah, does not fetch enough money to provide for her extended family.
“So the livestock business makes up for the rest, which is much needed. But in the past five years, the business is being squeezed by traders importing cheap animals from abroad they literally flood the market. Our sales now depends only on rich folk who prefer locally bred livestock because we feed our animals with chemical-free feedstock,” Ms Salah said.
Statistics from the animal wealth department show that about 1.45 million livestock are bred in Oman, a country with a population of about three million people. About 25 per cent of the livestock are sheep, 30 per cent goats and the rest cows and camels.
Traders who import livestock argue that the statistics show there are not enough animals bred in the country to satisfy local demand, especially in the festive seasons.
“In the two Eids, the demand soars to more than a million goats and sheep slaughtered for private people and hotels celebrating the religious occasions,” said Khalfan Marhoobi, distribution manager of the Muscat-based Livestock and Meat Supply Company. “Then there is the daily consumption of meat sold at butchers and supermarkets. Locally bred livestock cannot cater for this demand.”
The key difference between the imported and locally bred meat, however, is the price. “A local live sheep or goat costs 60 Omani rials [Dh595]. You can get the same animals imported abroad from Somalia or Iran each for 40 rials. The difference is about a third of the price,” Hussain al Lawati, a 42-year-old customer, said.
This economic reality has created a thriving market for imported meat and livestock, which is dominated by imports from Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and India, butchers said.
“Butchers in Oman sell only meat imported from abroad because it is cheaper to buy from distributors bringing it from overseas than directly from Omani breeders. I don’t know any distributor supplying meat from local livestock,” Saifullah Khan, a Pakistani butcher in Muscat said.
There are no statistics available to the amount of meat consumed in Oman or total livestock slaughtered, but Mr Khan estimated that only a quarter of locally produced meat finds the market in the country.
“To me, local meat ensures freshness and is free of chemicals usually injected to foreign livestock to make animals fat. Besides, if we buy locally produced meat, we keep alive the tradition started by our ancestors,” Salim al Brashdi, a 36-year-old Omani consumer said.
As for the high price of local livestock, Mr Brashdi suggested the government grant subsidies to herdswomen, the same way farmers and fishermen get free farming and fishing equipment.
“I think something like that to suit herdswomen can be worked out,” Mr al Brashdi said.
Some herdswomen have urged the government to put a cap on the import of livestock or fresh meat from abroad to help them revive their trade but they are yet to approach a government department to file a complaint.
“The government must regulate the meat market and put a levy on imported meat and livestock to protect us. We cannot compete with importers who are dumping the livestock at a cheaper price from abroad,” said Sharifa Farah, 46, a herdswoman in Fanja, a town about 70km from Muscat.
Government officials were not available to comment, but livestock experts blamed local meat distributors for not doing enough to promote locally bred animals.
“Herdswomen rely heavily on selling livestock directly to consumers or they auction the animals in the local souqs in a town’s square. These women are not educated and they only know to sell the way it has always been done for centuries. Distributors need to help by cutting down on imports and promote local meat,” Khamfar Jaalan, 74, a retired ministry of agriculture official, said.
Mr Marhoobi agreed with this assessment but said all meat distributors must be required to sell local meat and livestock.
“What is needed is the compliance of all distributors. After all, the attraction of locally bred animals is that their food is not tampered by chemicals to fatten them up,” Mr Marhoobi said. “Besides, as nationals, we have the obligation to make sure this ancient trade survives.”
salshaibany@thenational.ae
Source: The National: An uphill struggle for Omani herdswomen
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Widows of Oman call for end to prejudice
Saleh al Shaibany
Foreign Correspondent
* Last Updated: November 22. 2009 8:19PM UAE / November 22. 2009 4:19PM GMT
MUSCAT // Nasra al Mukhaini, 38, a widow for the past 18 months, has found that life without her husband of 16 years is even more difficult than she could have imagined.
He left her with three young children and, with no formal education, Ms al Mukhaini cannot find a job to support her family. They survive from the financial support of her two brothers.
“My brothers have their own families and they can’t spare much. They also are under a lot of pressure from their wives because my children and I are extra mouths to feed,” said Ms al Mukhaini , whose husband, who died at the age of 42, was a mechanic for an automobile dealership.
Many Omani widows struggle to lead happy lives after losing their husbands in a society that treats them as a burden and bad luck. Most widows struggle to cope with their grief, and few are able to find second husbands and build new lives.
According to a local superstition, anyone they marry is destined to die a premature death.
Women’s rights activists say the superstition is contrary to Islamic teaching, but is kept alive by men who do not want to be saddled with orphaned children and by women reluctant to share their husbands with second wives. “It is a stupid tradition, started by men who see orphaned children as a burden. Islam encourages men to marry widows to shelter them and protect them from loose tongues,” Ms al Mukhaini said.
In the Qur’an, Muslim men are allowed to marry four wives, and one of the reasons given is to help provide a new life for widowed women.
Widows in Oman also become the victim of gossip by other women whenever they interact with men.
“They sometimes get labelled as men grabbers if they get friendly with the opposite sex, just because they are available. These women don’t understand that being available does not mean a widow is on the lookout to get married to any man she makes contact with,” Ms al Mukhaini said.
Many young widows also find that their friends often abandon them after the deaths of their husbands. With no friends, their social lives become severely restricted.
“Jealous wives would never invite young and pretty widows to their houses. We are kept away from their husbands. They see us as a threat to their marriages. Of course, their fear is unfounded, but these girls suddenly find that they need to protect their marriages,” Sabiha Malik, 29, said.
Ms Malik’s husband died three years ago, leaving her with two children but no financial problems. She is a business graduate with a well-paying job and is able to support her young family.
“Perhaps a widow like me can be spared from financial problems, but there is no escaping the prejudice of the society. No one likes to admit it, but we are treated like social outcasts; it’s all smiles in front, but frowns behind your back,” Ms Malik said.
According to Ms al Mukhaini, widows are rarely invited to weddings, which are the main social gatherings of the year in Oman and a chance to get out of the house and spend time with family and friends.
“If you do [invite them], then bad luck would descend on the newlyweds. At worst, the bride will also become a widow, as if widowhood is a contamination that can be passed on. You can see the scale of the problem a widow has to face,” Ms al Mukhaini said.
Ms Malik called for social reforms and a change of attitude to eliminate misconceptions about widows.
“It is about time we change. I know it is difficult, but it can be done through symposiums backed by the media. But more widows must come forward to support the cause because most of them prefer to suffer silently. The bad luck associated with us is just part of a cruel tradition, started centuries ago. It is un-Islamic, too,” Ms Malik said.
According to the Qur’an, widows cannot marry again immediately but must wait four months and 10 days after the death of their husbands. The period is called iddah and its purpose is to establish whether the widow is pregnant or not to avoid confusion over who the father is if she gets married again. It is also to protect women from rushing to another marriage while they are emotionally vulnerable in the period of mourning.
Widows who have romantic relationships outside of marriage defend themselves and blame the communities they live in.
“We have biological needs and if we can’t get husbands, then who could blame us?” a widow who identified herself only as Salma said.
Some Omani widows marry foreign men after failing to find suitors from among their compatriots. “Younger widows marrying foreigners is a more popular option and a solution to their matrimonial problem,” Salma added.
But Salma said the call on tolerance from society to ease the suffering of widows hinges on educated women who have lost their husbands, like Sabiha Malik.
“Oman is not the place where women’s voices are heard easily. It will take time to be embraced by society. However, educated women can start the movement now by having roadshows, seminars and television talk shows to change that,” Salma said.
Source The National: Widows of Oman call for end to prejudice
Foreign Correspondent
* Last Updated: November 22. 2009 8:19PM UAE / November 22. 2009 4:19PM GMT
MUSCAT // Nasra al Mukhaini, 38, a widow for the past 18 months, has found that life without her husband of 16 years is even more difficult than she could have imagined.
He left her with three young children and, with no formal education, Ms al Mukhaini cannot find a job to support her family. They survive from the financial support of her two brothers.
“My brothers have their own families and they can’t spare much. They also are under a lot of pressure from their wives because my children and I are extra mouths to feed,” said Ms al Mukhaini , whose husband, who died at the age of 42, was a mechanic for an automobile dealership.
Many Omani widows struggle to lead happy lives after losing their husbands in a society that treats them as a burden and bad luck. Most widows struggle to cope with their grief, and few are able to find second husbands and build new lives.
According to a local superstition, anyone they marry is destined to die a premature death.
Women’s rights activists say the superstition is contrary to Islamic teaching, but is kept alive by men who do not want to be saddled with orphaned children and by women reluctant to share their husbands with second wives. “It is a stupid tradition, started by men who see orphaned children as a burden. Islam encourages men to marry widows to shelter them and protect them from loose tongues,” Ms al Mukhaini said.
In the Qur’an, Muslim men are allowed to marry four wives, and one of the reasons given is to help provide a new life for widowed women.
Widows in Oman also become the victim of gossip by other women whenever they interact with men.
“They sometimes get labelled as men grabbers if they get friendly with the opposite sex, just because they are available. These women don’t understand that being available does not mean a widow is on the lookout to get married to any man she makes contact with,” Ms al Mukhaini said.
Many young widows also find that their friends often abandon them after the deaths of their husbands. With no friends, their social lives become severely restricted.
“Jealous wives would never invite young and pretty widows to their houses. We are kept away from their husbands. They see us as a threat to their marriages. Of course, their fear is unfounded, but these girls suddenly find that they need to protect their marriages,” Sabiha Malik, 29, said.
Ms Malik’s husband died three years ago, leaving her with two children but no financial problems. She is a business graduate with a well-paying job and is able to support her young family.
“Perhaps a widow like me can be spared from financial problems, but there is no escaping the prejudice of the society. No one likes to admit it, but we are treated like social outcasts; it’s all smiles in front, but frowns behind your back,” Ms Malik said.
According to Ms al Mukhaini, widows are rarely invited to weddings, which are the main social gatherings of the year in Oman and a chance to get out of the house and spend time with family and friends.
“If you do [invite them], then bad luck would descend on the newlyweds. At worst, the bride will also become a widow, as if widowhood is a contamination that can be passed on. You can see the scale of the problem a widow has to face,” Ms al Mukhaini said.
Ms Malik called for social reforms and a change of attitude to eliminate misconceptions about widows.
“It is about time we change. I know it is difficult, but it can be done through symposiums backed by the media. But more widows must come forward to support the cause because most of them prefer to suffer silently. The bad luck associated with us is just part of a cruel tradition, started centuries ago. It is un-Islamic, too,” Ms Malik said.
According to the Qur’an, widows cannot marry again immediately but must wait four months and 10 days after the death of their husbands. The period is called iddah and its purpose is to establish whether the widow is pregnant or not to avoid confusion over who the father is if she gets married again. It is also to protect women from rushing to another marriage while they are emotionally vulnerable in the period of mourning.
Widows who have romantic relationships outside of marriage defend themselves and blame the communities they live in.
“We have biological needs and if we can’t get husbands, then who could blame us?” a widow who identified herself only as Salma said.
Some Omani widows marry foreign men after failing to find suitors from among their compatriots. “Younger widows marrying foreigners is a more popular option and a solution to their matrimonial problem,” Salma added.
But Salma said the call on tolerance from society to ease the suffering of widows hinges on educated women who have lost their husbands, like Sabiha Malik.
“Oman is not the place where women’s voices are heard easily. It will take time to be embraced by society. However, educated women can start the movement now by having roadshows, seminars and television talk shows to change that,” Salma said.
Source The National: Widows of Oman call for end to prejudice
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Omanis count cost of funds fraud
MUSCAT // When each of the 20 people were swindled out of 1,500 rials (Dh14,300) by a jomeea financing scheme, they had no option but to report the “crime” to the police. Even before they made the complaint, they knew they had little hope of getting their money back.
Jomeea is a tradition practised in Omani communities to raise funds for individuals to finance the purchase of a property, such as a farm, or the construction of a house. Each member of the jomeea, on a rotational basis, collects a fixed amount of money from the other members each month.
Members in a jomeea group can be as few as five but regularly number more than 30. The amount of money changing hands ranges from 50 rials to 2,000 rials a month, depending on the financial status of participants. Each member receives the amount he contributed when his turn comes. The person receiving the money continues to contribute until the round ends.
Jomeeas are completely legal, though susceptible to dishonest members, and frowned upon by bankers here.
Hundreds of people across the country have been swindled over the years, but there are no statistics because the jomeea is not an officially sanctioned practice and the government has repeatedly said it does not get involved in private financial arrangements. The Central Bank of Oman, in a recent statement, refused to regulate the practice, saying it was an arrangement incompatible with standard international financial practices.
For Mohammed Shaikhan, 36, a mechanical engineer, the jomeea due would have been 28,500 rials with which he planned to partly finance his house in Muscat. Mr Shaikhan said a member of his jomeea left the country for Africa after collecting the money in his round – and never returned.
“The man just disappeared with our money and we believe he is out of the country. I suspect he is somewhere in Africa, where he cannot be found,” Mr Sheikhan said. “It is embarrassing to talk about it that 20 people can be swindled by a seemingly nice man.”
Mr Shaikhan and his friends’ case was rejected by the court since there was nothing in writing about the arrangement. The judge said that the matter “must be solved amicably between the concerned members of the jomeea, like it always has been over the years”.
They are not the only ones whose cases have been rejected by the courts. Cheated people do not usually talk about their predicament because of the shame.
In rare circumstances, courts have convicted people for defrauding their jomeea partners. Laila Moosawi, a nurse, who was swindled out of more than 3,200 rials by a jomeea, said she and other members successfully prosecuted the man responsible for the crime, but she did not see a penny of her investment.
“Though we had nothing in writing between us, we paid by cheques and the bank easily traced the money in his account when it was his turn to receive the cash. We managed to put him in prison on that basis. It helped because he was in the country and admitted what he had done,” Mrs Moosawi said. “We did not get our money because the criminal said that he spent it. Though we had the satisfaction of seeing him get a two-year sentence, we are severely short of cash. The man will come out eventually from jail to spend the 16,000 rials.”
The man said he spent it, although it is possible he had secreted it away. Failure to pay back the money factored into his sentence.
In many instances of jomeea fraud, swindlers stop paying once they receive their portion of the money and either disappear or cook up stories of their houses being burgled.
Despite the risk involved, jomeea financing remains prevalent.
“Taking a bank loan, according to Islam is haram [forbidden] because of the reebah [interest]. Jomeea offers people interest-free financing, which gives them assurance that the money they receive is not tainted with usury,” Jalil al Badai, a tribal elder, said.
There are no Islamic banks in Oman. Deeply religious Omanis decline interest on their savings and give instructions to their bank managers that the interest be given to charity. They almost never take bank loans, and this is why the practice survives.
Not all people who participate in a jomeea group join because of their religiosity. Some do it to avoid paying steep interest on bank loans. Omani banks at the moment charge up to eight per cent interest per year.
Mr al Badai has written to the Central Bank for jomeea financing to be recognised by the government and regulated by its financial laws. He has not given up hope that the government will one day regulate jomeea.
“This is not Islamic finance nor is it the conventional western one that we see being practised. Jomeea is an Omani tradition to raise money for the community. It has been practised for centuries and only in the last 10 years do we see people with bad intentions joining. I think the Central Bank must play its role to encourage this tradition from going out of extinction,” Mr al Badai said.
Financial analysts said the local banks’ shareholders saw jomeea as a threat to their business, and some believe that this was the reason it would never be regulated.
“If jomeea is accepted and regulated by the government, then that may well restrict the profitability of the local banks in the long run,” Jassim Battash, a financial analyst with Seeb Investment Services, said.
According to Central Bank statistics, more than 70 per cent of the credit sanctioned by local banks are classified as personal loans.
Reproduced from The National: Omanis count cost of funds fraud
Jomeea is a tradition practised in Omani communities to raise funds for individuals to finance the purchase of a property, such as a farm, or the construction of a house. Each member of the jomeea, on a rotational basis, collects a fixed amount of money from the other members each month.
Members in a jomeea group can be as few as five but regularly number more than 30. The amount of money changing hands ranges from 50 rials to 2,000 rials a month, depending on the financial status of participants. Each member receives the amount he contributed when his turn comes. The person receiving the money continues to contribute until the round ends.
Jomeeas are completely legal, though susceptible to dishonest members, and frowned upon by bankers here.
Hundreds of people across the country have been swindled over the years, but there are no statistics because the jomeea is not an officially sanctioned practice and the government has repeatedly said it does not get involved in private financial arrangements. The Central Bank of Oman, in a recent statement, refused to regulate the practice, saying it was an arrangement incompatible with standard international financial practices.
For Mohammed Shaikhan, 36, a mechanical engineer, the jomeea due would have been 28,500 rials with which he planned to partly finance his house in Muscat. Mr Shaikhan said a member of his jomeea left the country for Africa after collecting the money in his round – and never returned.
“The man just disappeared with our money and we believe he is out of the country. I suspect he is somewhere in Africa, where he cannot be found,” Mr Sheikhan said. “It is embarrassing to talk about it that 20 people can be swindled by a seemingly nice man.”
Mr Shaikhan and his friends’ case was rejected by the court since there was nothing in writing about the arrangement. The judge said that the matter “must be solved amicably between the concerned members of the jomeea, like it always has been over the years”.
They are not the only ones whose cases have been rejected by the courts. Cheated people do not usually talk about their predicament because of the shame.
In rare circumstances, courts have convicted people for defrauding their jomeea partners. Laila Moosawi, a nurse, who was swindled out of more than 3,200 rials by a jomeea, said she and other members successfully prosecuted the man responsible for the crime, but she did not see a penny of her investment.
“Though we had nothing in writing between us, we paid by cheques and the bank easily traced the money in his account when it was his turn to receive the cash. We managed to put him in prison on that basis. It helped because he was in the country and admitted what he had done,” Mrs Moosawi said. “We did not get our money because the criminal said that he spent it. Though we had the satisfaction of seeing him get a two-year sentence, we are severely short of cash. The man will come out eventually from jail to spend the 16,000 rials.”
The man said he spent it, although it is possible he had secreted it away. Failure to pay back the money factored into his sentence.
In many instances of jomeea fraud, swindlers stop paying once they receive their portion of the money and either disappear or cook up stories of their houses being burgled.
Despite the risk involved, jomeea financing remains prevalent.
“Taking a bank loan, according to Islam is haram [forbidden] because of the reebah [interest]. Jomeea offers people interest-free financing, which gives them assurance that the money they receive is not tainted with usury,” Jalil al Badai, a tribal elder, said.
There are no Islamic banks in Oman. Deeply religious Omanis decline interest on their savings and give instructions to their bank managers that the interest be given to charity. They almost never take bank loans, and this is why the practice survives.
Not all people who participate in a jomeea group join because of their religiosity. Some do it to avoid paying steep interest on bank loans. Omani banks at the moment charge up to eight per cent interest per year.
Mr al Badai has written to the Central Bank for jomeea financing to be recognised by the government and regulated by its financial laws. He has not given up hope that the government will one day regulate jomeea.
“This is not Islamic finance nor is it the conventional western one that we see being practised. Jomeea is an Omani tradition to raise money for the community. It has been practised for centuries and only in the last 10 years do we see people with bad intentions joining. I think the Central Bank must play its role to encourage this tradition from going out of extinction,” Mr al Badai said.
Financial analysts said the local banks’ shareholders saw jomeea as a threat to their business, and some believe that this was the reason it would never be regulated.
“If jomeea is accepted and regulated by the government, then that may well restrict the profitability of the local banks in the long run,” Jassim Battash, a financial analyst with Seeb Investment Services, said.
According to Central Bank statistics, more than 70 per cent of the credit sanctioned by local banks are classified as personal loans.
Reproduced from The National: Omanis count cost of funds fraud
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Oman to Fund a New Library in Uzbekistan
MUSCAT — A new library at the Oriental Studies Institute in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent will be built with funds provided by the government of Oman, according to an agreement signed between the two countries on Monday, the second and final day of an official visit here by Islam Karimov, the President of Uzbekistan.
The ‘Abu Alraihan Albairuni’ library will house more than 26,000 manuscripts, 85,000 historical messages, most of them in the Turkish, Uzbek and Farsi languages, as wells as 10,000 manuscripts in Arabic, currently in the possession of the institute.
Most of these rare documents date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. UNESCO has listed them in its World Heritage List as there are no similar copies anywhere else in the world.
The accord was signed by National Economy Minister of Oman Ahmed bin Abdulnabi Macki and Vladir Norov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.
Several other deals were also concluded between the two countries including regularising air transportation and to promote cooperation in tourism.
The two leaders, during the meetings, also exchanged views on the latest developments at the regional and international levels, an official statement said.
Source: Khaleej Times: Oman to Fund a New Library in Uzbekistan
The ‘Abu Alraihan Albairuni’ library will house more than 26,000 manuscripts, 85,000 historical messages, most of them in the Turkish, Uzbek and Farsi languages, as wells as 10,000 manuscripts in Arabic, currently in the possession of the institute.
Most of these rare documents date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. UNESCO has listed them in its World Heritage List as there are no similar copies anywhere else in the world.
The accord was signed by National Economy Minister of Oman Ahmed bin Abdulnabi Macki and Vladir Norov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.
Several other deals were also concluded between the two countries including regularising air transportation and to promote cooperation in tourism.
The two leaders, during the meetings, also exchanged views on the latest developments at the regional and international levels, an official statement said.
Source: Khaleej Times: Oman to Fund a New Library in Uzbekistan
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