This has not come to pass. Dubai’s legal system is demonstrating its internal cohesiveness and ability to evolve, and proving that most of that western “concern” was really just ignorance mixed with panic mixed with soft bigotry of lowered expectation. Dubai Informer reports that Dubai recently had its first foreclosure case, and it involves a Western bank.

Barclays recently won Dubai’s 1st foreclosure case in a local courtroom. The decision, based on a 2008 law, paves the way for others to pursue claims. Lenders hold $16 billion of residential mortgages. Tamweel P. J. S. C., Dubai’s largest home loan bank, has a number of foreclosure cases pending. ” Banks will be more aggressive, ” says Antoine Yacoub, a Dubai – based banking analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. ” As soon as they see a precedent has been set, they will be encouraged to push more cases through.”

The article goes on to point out that foreclosure is probably not going to be the preferred way of going further:

Lenders might be selective in applying the new law. Britain’s Standard Chartered Bank, a big mortgage lender in Dubai, says foreclosure is “a legitimate course of action” but not its “preferred approach”. As in the United States, financial institutions are reluctant to dump foreclosed houses on the market for fear of driving down prices, says Saud Masud, a Dubai – based real estate analyst at UBS. New projects, started before the bust, will add up to 30,000 housing units to the market in 2010, according to Deutsche Bank. ” Mass auctions might reprice the real estate market in a meaningful way, ” Masud says. ” It’s a slippery slope.”

The place where Dubai’s real estate boys really went wrong was not necessarily in dreaming big, but in relying on a Wall Street CEO to lead their investment arm, a guy who just happened to have learned his trade at, you guessed it, Lehman Brothers. (A firm that doesn’t exist any more). This CEO leaves his job with his former company, Dubai World, $22 billion in hole, off to “pursue other opportunities.” Dubai World, meanwhile, will avoid going into bankruptcy.

Enjoy my meager attempt at transliteration and translation below.  (I am not fluent in Punjabi nor do I have any training so if you can do better please comment).

aj sik mitraN di vadheri ae
kyun dilrhi udaas ghanayri ae
loo loo vich shawk changayri ae
aj naina layan kyun jharyaaN

why is my yearning for the beloved so intense today?
why is there such longing in my heart?
why does separation penetrate every ounce of me?
why do my eyes shed tears like stormy rain?

mukh chund badr shashani ae
mathay chumkay laat nurani ae
kali zulf tay akh mastani ae
chittay dand vich moti diyan haan laryaaN

His face shines full like the moon
From his brow radiates brilliant light
His hair is black and eyes bewitching
His teeth are white like a string of pearls.

ae soorat noon main jaan aakhaaN
janaaN kay jaane jahan aakhaaN
such aakhaan tay rab di shaan aakhaaN
jis shaan thay shaanaaN sub baniyaN

Should I refer to his visage as my life?
Or the life of the whole universe itself?
Truth is that he is the glory of God
From the glory all glories emanate.

Here he goes back to the opening stanza.

Today I am pleased to share one more example of the idea of near-far. It is also from Arabic poetry, specifically the master Abu’l-’Alaa’ al-Ma’arri (d.1057 A.D). His two lines are as follows:

Be neighborly to the fair maiden
and consider her a sister of the Virginis stars
despite the proximity of her abode.
We are like our eyes that will never meet
although they are separated
only by a wall
a small wall.

That is the story of people in the Ghurbah (diaspora; expatriation; being away from home, the beloved, and the loved ones).

There is no need for one Muslim to condemn the crimes of another. Collective responsibility cannot, and should not, be accepted. Where one accepts collective responsibility one opens the door to collective punishment. Are Muslims individuals? Or are they one singular marionette that pirouettes each time its string is pulled?

One of the most egregious acts of kowtowing to the “massa” occurred recently in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings. At Huffington Post, Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Salam al-Maryati wrote an article directed to Muslim-Americans, extolling them to “amplify our Muslim American identity.” No thanks. The only thing I’ll amplify is the length of my middle finger. A law-abiding American-Muslim has no need to do anything, one way or the other, when someone with a Muslim sounding name goes off the rail. The reason for this abstention-from-condemnation is not because “Christians don’t do it” or “Jews don’t do it.” It is nothing communal. Rather, it has to do with individual dignity, and individual accountability. We are all, each one of us, responsible for our actions, and liable for our mistakes. The ambit of our accountability cannot be allowed to extend beyond that. Why are the boundaries between one Muslim and another blurred and the individualities fused together? Muslims are not inkblots.

I have been against the notion of Muslims having to condemn this or that for years now, but previously my tone was restrained as I felt that calm persuasion was the right way to go about presenting this position. Not any more. Next time someone asks me to tell them why x or y Muslim murderer is evil I will bear witness in ways that are rated R.

Now in the name of Allah I’m going to go slaughter a turkey.

For all of us melancholics and obsessives and loners and miscreants, with our spiritual gastroenteritis and Nietzschean dyspepsia, the existence of the Sufis is thoroughly soothing, even if we never join their orders or learn their prayers.

Some of these are stories/characters that did not make the final cut of my prose work Children of Dust.

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s tragic shooting and killing at Fort Hood army base in Texas, which has claimed the lives of at least 12 people, occured on November 5. According to ABC one of the suspected gunman in Fort Hood is a convert to Islam born Muslim, of Palestinian origin, by the name Major Malik Nadal Hasan. (It should be noted that this point the military has not released any names). The Lede blog at NYTimes says that the alleged shooter’s name was Nidal Malik Hasan, a licensed doctor from Virginia. Senator’s Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s people are saying that the major was allegedly upset about his upcoming deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Today’s date is the same as the date of the Guy Fawkes plot of 1605, when a Catholic dissident who had been previously served as a soldier, unsuccessfully tried to blow up the English Parliament in order to kill the Protestants inside. Today the Brits celebrate the foiling of his plot. “Remember, remember, the Fifth of November”.

(Guy Fawkes is celebrated among anarchists. His antics were depicted in a favorable light in the comic and film V for Vendetta).

I assume we’ll find out the exact identities of the perpetrators (there are supposedly three) in due time, as well as their affiliations and motivations. However the date and why it was chosen should be noted and scrutinized. Perhaps the attacker was trying to mimic the anarchist from long ago.

Ultimately a horrible tragedy all around.

CERN, if you don’t pay attention to science, is where the Large Hadron Collider is kept. The LHC is this massive thing which seeks to recreate the conditions of the beginning of the universe i.e. the Big Bang. One of the knocks against the LHC is that it could potentially unleash a black hole on earth which would, yeah, suck all of us up.

In related news: last night I was watching a comic on TV and he referred to terrorists as “Ahmed McGuyver.”

Qatar is also ranked higher — sometimes significantly — than many Western and East Asian states, such as Portugal, Spain, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. By the way, where is India, that darling of global capitalism? Number 85. Down there with such stalwarts as Serbia and Algeria.

UAE and Bahrain did pretty well too (though when it comes to corruption everyone can be better).

All in all, on an index where the U.S. ranks 18 and Qatar ranks 28, this is a pretty significant achievement. It is also a sign that Qatar deserves a major international sporting event, like the Olympics or the world cup. After all, if South Africa, #54 can get the world cup, and Brazil, #80, can be in the running for the Olympics, and #57 and #72 (Greece and China) have both held the Olympics, why not Qatar get something to show off the progress it has made?

Besides, if Chicago can be in the running for 2016 Olympics despite what is going on there, then Qatar certainly deserves some love.

5 – Obama seems to get along with the Saudi royals. Most Muslims, including many Saudis, do not.

4 – Obama supports the Chicago Bears. In Islam, bears are najis, or impure i.e. getting licked by one would break one’s ritual ablution.

3 – Obama can’t put on his own traditional clothes. Muslims can do it themselves. (Not to mention that Muslims usually remove their shirt and pants before putting on such clothes).

2 – Obama’s preferred drug was weed. Most Muslims consider drugs haram; while those that do partake of them usually prefer opium instead of marijuana based substances. (Obama also showed a preference for non-Muslim Colombia over Muslim Afghanistan when he opted for cocaine over heroin).

1 – Hard to be a faithful Muslim and a faithless commie all at once.

Honorable mentions via FB friends:

Obama would be ok touching a bill that has pork;

Obama is used to having people worship him five times a day instead of the other way around.

Warning: some of the imagery may be considered inappropriate and/or difficult.