Salmiya

When recently having read German Orientalist Tilman Nagel’s voluminous opus maximum on life and legend of the prophet of Islam , I became once more interested in the different versions of Muhammad’s ascension to heaven and his night journey to Jerusalem which had already been combined in the earliest surviving text on his life, Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 761) Sirat Rasul Allah (“Life of the Messenger of God)”, edited by one of his students, Ibn Hisham (d. 830 CE). Largely powerless, his preaching oppressed, his followers brutally persecuted, Muhammad had tried, just 18 months before emigrating to the city of Yathrib, to reassert himself by telling strange stories about night journeys. According to the Kitab al-Tarikh wa al-Maghazi by another biographer, Al-Waqidi (d. 822), the prophet ascended to heaven on Ramadan 17 (621 CE) when having a nap at the Ka’aba in Makkah. A ladder ( mi’raj ) was put up by the two angels Jibril (Gabriel) and Mikhael (Michael) between the Zamzam well...

Suleiman , one of Whitesands Hotel’s tour managers, wasn’t in a good mood. Very talkative, he obviously believed that I would actually be interested in his family affairs which seemed to be in a mess. His wife had been taken back to Riyadh by her parents where they were living. Arabs. A black man was not really the son in law they had expected, he told me. But at least you are a Muslim, aren’t you? I asked him. Yes, he replied, but his mother was Christian, and it doesn’t really matter. Then he told me about the origin of the Palestinians. Although knowing the story about Jacob and his older twin brother Esau, the two sons of Isaac and Rebekah, I wasn’t aware about theories regarding the two resulting tribes, the children if Israel (or Jacob) and those of Esau, the Palestinians (or Edomites, I suppose). An interesting hypothesis. We took a ride to Jumba la Mtwana (he unavailingly tried me to pronounce the Swahili words correctly). The century-old gorgeous ruins of a town north of Mom...

A Saudi-Arabian man was shown in the Al Watan newspaper earlier this week trampling on a bunch of roses in a flower shop, making clear that he despises Valentine's Day (February 14). Bad for him. My first thought which came to my mind was the pogroms about 70 years ago in Nazi Germany when Jewish shops were demolished ( "Kristallnacht" ). These fundamentalists threaten people who they urgently need for running their societies , for instance, Philippinos. It is quite a shame that Arabs still need some extra lessions in humanity, tolerance, love and peace. I was also wondering whether Saudi Arabian men wear winter dishdashas these days. Could it be that the picture had been taken in Kuwait? I suppose, many Philippino flower shop owners in Kuwait were scared last week as well.