Hajj Charity in Makkah

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

Situated on the 4th floor of the shopping centre in the middle of the Hilton Towers Complex this charity can distribute charity to the poor of Makkah as part of the Hajj and Umrah rites.

Below is their brochure.  Money can be transferred to their bank account directly. Make sure any instructions are in Arabic. Ask someone to translate the words if you do not understand. Don’t expect any communication back. The alternative is to give money directly in their office. They have people who speak Arabic, English and probably other common languages of the Muslim world.

Brochure for Hajj Charity in Makkah

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, Hajj and Umrah charity in Makkah

Water wars and hydroponics

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

The Arab news gave extensive coverage to a conference on water resource management held in Saudi Arabia yesterday. The price of water is scheduled to go up. This is in light of the recent decision by the Saudi authorities to stop farming that is being done in the country which has been a very water inefficient process. As I was reading this the statistic that stuck in my mind was the predicted population explosion. The current population of Saudi Citizens is 20 million or thereabouts and is predicted to rise to current Egyptian levels of 80-100 million by 2060.

This potentially back breaking and war instigating demand on the provision of water to the citizens of Saudi Arabia and the greater Middle East is something that is exercising the minds of many in this area who  realise the potential of the problem. This was one of the reasons why Saudi Arabia abandoned its water rich and crop poor desert greenification attempts. If you drive from Riyadh to Dammam you can see the industrial attempt to greenify the desert, with industrial scale piping being used to irrigate circular patches of green. You can even see the patches of green on Google Earth as shown in the embed below (the round circles)

View Larger Map

No matter how rich you are you have to look at both the inputs and outputs. While Saudi is currently oil rich and can afford desalination a rapidly growing population implies it has to look at the outputs much more carefully and reduce water demand in the long term. Indeed this is the prophetic teaching of Muhammad (S) who is reported in a weak hadith to have advised a Companin who was doing his abltions that he should not waste water even if he is next to a river.

So can Saudi grow its food in an alternate way?

According to Professor Dickson Despommier the answer is yes. He was being interviewed by NPR radio yesterday and was advocating the use of  hydroponics to grow crops. His key points were as follows:

• Hydroponics is the science of growing crops without soil.
• This is something that happens in nature and the technology to grow such crops is well established.
• Hydroponics farms can be built in multi story buildings hence the term ‘vertical farms’
• Abandoned multistory buildings can be given a new lease of life.
• In sunshine rich countries the sun light can be transmitted via mirrors or even fibre optic cables to each plant!
• The crops and the ruit produced are indistinguishable from soil grown crops.
• The technique uses 70-80% less water than soil grown crops.
• The water can even be recycled.
• He is currently speaking to the Qatari government in the Middle East amongst others in the world to bring this idea  to them.

Saudi and other nations in a similar predicament should give this technique further thought and analysis.

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, World Affairs, hydroponics, Professor Dickson Despommier and hydroponics, Saudi farming, Saudi population explosion, Saudi water problem, soil is not needed for crop growth

Worker Safety

Bismillah

Worker safety is not a high priority in many parts of the developing world. Jeddah is not an exception. Two workers hang off the  back of a dustbin truck as they wait for the lights to go red at an intersection in Jeddah.

Workers travelling through Jeddah traffic

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, Jeddah worker safety, Worker safety

Changing Tides

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

I had an interesting conversation with an elderly Saudi gentleman the other day. He was reminiscing about the time his mother who had nine children would look after all of them and she had no maid to help her carry out the daily chores in life.

Her life was very simple she would wash her children’s clothes with Tide. When it came to the time to wash the house whe would reach for her Tide. When it came to bathing time she would also use her Tide.  Life was very simple and the large number of detergents were not available. Despite the lack of assistance she had time for  her relatives and would spend time with her children.

Shifting back to the present the man carried on speaking about a simple shopping trip nowadays in Saudi Arabia. There was a special washing powder for particular types of clothes, one for coloured, one for whites. Then there is a soap for your body and another for your hair. Ofcourse there is one for your kitchen, one for the bathroom and another for general cleaning. And the list had now become bewildering. To cap it all off now wife’s had fewer children, maids to help them and had less time than ever before.

Tide as a brand has been around since the 1940′s and would have been one of the first few products imported from the USA to Saudi Arabia.

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, Changing Tides, Saudi life, Tide soap

Poem – Jeddah Flood

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

A torrid slide of wet sand
Enveloping every car and hand
Courtiers whirling in a death defying spin
From a thousand to hundred their din

Rain water rolling down hills
Everyone knew the perils
But little did they do or say
Engrossed in the games they play

He said patient be
Till you meet me
At the edge of the pond
In the world beyond

Blessed is he for he felt our pain
To Hudhayfa he said in words plain
Humans they are flesh and meat
But within devilish hearts beat

When will their hearts melt?
And notice how we felt
Are their hearts frozen in ice?
Will they not stir once or twice?

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Filed under: Poetry, Saudi Arabia, hadith - Muslim. hadith collection in Muslim, Hudhayfah, Jeddah deaths, Jeddah deaths in 2009, Jeddah flash floods 2009, Jeddah mud slide, Jeddah poem, Jeddah rains, Prophet Muhammad prediction

Switch back to WordPress

Bismillah, alhamdulillah,

I have come back to WordPress. Blogger worked quite well but I was quite shocked to find it did not allow for categories and a very poor usability index  and layout I thought. And the real reason I am back is that WordPress is working again from connection, which is quite nice – alhamdulillah.

Filed under: Saudi Arabia

Islamic studies in Jeddah

Bismillah, alhamdulillah : In the name of God, with gratitude and praise for Him

There are opportunities to listen to study Islam in Jeddah, but these are not as abundant as in other cities in the country and few well advertised opportunities exist in English. I have tried to list what I am aware of sources and places to learn in English and Arabic primarily. I have briefly touched upon Urdu. Where possible I have tried to clarify the location of places.

Filed under: Dawah, Education, Saudi Arabia, English radio programmes in Jeddah, Islamic lectures in Saudi Arabia, Islamic studies English in Jeddah, islamic studies in Arabic Jeddah, Islamic studies in Urdu in Jeddah, ladies Islamic institute jeddah, live Islamic lectures, Quran memorisation centres, Quran Radio Saudi Arabia

Learning Arabic in Jeddah

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

Learning the host language of a land you have come to helps your integration into that community. Learning Arabic can be quite a challenge to people coming to the Middle East, especially the Gulf. There are various challenges and this article describes my Jeddah experience with this:

Filed under: Arabic, Saudi Arabia, Arabic tutors Jeddah, Arabic work life balance, Learning Arabic in Jeddah, Quran tutor Jeddah, Teaching children Arabic

Decline of the Islamic calendar

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

The two Islamic Eids usually witness a great deal of controversy over their precise dates. Proponents mainly in the West argue for the use astronomical calculations to determine the probability of visibility of the new crescent, which marks the beginning of the new month. The method chosen by the Saudi authorities is more simple and relies on the presence of witnesses whose testimony is accepted on oath by a judge. The process by which the Saudi authorities decide which sightings to accept or not is obscure. The lack of public scrutiny of this process only fuels the general suspicion that the process is subject to other factors.

 

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, faranji, Hijri calendar, Islamic calendar, miladee, Saudi Arabic calendar system, Um Al-Quran calendar, Umar and Islamic calendar

The Hajj Trade Fair?

Bismillah alhamdulillah.

Driving back on the long road from the shores of the Arabian Gulf to the Red Sea I looked in amazement at the snaking convoy of cars that was stretching over 800 km. Cars laden with overhead luggage and coaches were passing one a second all the way from the outskirts of Riyadh to Makkah. Assuming an average of 5 passengers per vehicle in a period of 12 hours a million pilgrims had driven themselves away from Makkah. The press figures state that the total number of pilgrims this year were 3 million – a staggering figure. Somewhere between 30-60% of this 3 million are pilgrims from outside the Gulf area. This amazing gathering provides an opportunity for furthering links between the various parts of the Muslim world. One such link is trade.

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, business in Muslim world, encouraging Muslim trade, Hajj trade fair, intra-Muslim world trade, trade opportunity