“Oman Contributing to the Global Dialogue”

Thanks to Rumaitha from Merge Fm for sharing this video and info, “This video has been doing the rounds on social media making Omanis very proud when Kerry states that ‘Oman is contributing to the Global Dialogue’“.  Merge FM is a GREAT source of news in the Sultanate.  If you love Oman (and good music!), you should consider following them on facebook.

 Go, Oman!

“The Cave”

 

  The Cave is a huge multi-restaurant complex (with plans to open hotels there as well in the near future) on Qurum Heights Road in Darsait.  This first post will be of the place itself before I get to another post in which we were invited to a fabulous food tasting event at what is sure to be one of the best locations at the site…  My friend, Wanda, recently blogged about her visit to the Cave and her experience dining at Harbor on her blog. It was her 100th blog post. Be sure to check it out!  I count 8 places to dine on the main signboard (although it seems “Clouds” is on there 2 times with another location (?) called “Above the Clouds”).  Several are to open this week including Rumba which was where we had the pleasure of dining Friday night! For now, as far as I know, only 2 restaurants are open: The Harbor (Seafood Restaurant) and Clouds Terrace.   Beautiful view overlooking Darsait.  This is the Omani restaurant which should open soon. Love the door.  We weren’t that impressed with the look of Harbor especially after seeing the incredible interior of Rumba…coming soon to a post near you.               Loved the look of the palm trees off the glass there!  The pictures fail to capture the beauty of the place and its surroundings.  I must admit that I was skeptical of the whole “cave thing” but it looks like they’ve created quite a unique place.  I recommend heading down there yourself and walking around and through the place.  These were the only 2 places open for business when we were there on Friday.  Stay tuned for our exciting food tasting evening at Rumba, the Latina Restaurant, at the Cave in the next post. 

For Reservations at Harbor or Clouds, call 80006000, or email info@thecave.om.  Website: www.thecave.om (which will actually direct you to their facebook page)

“Wameed” -17th Photography Week at Photo Society SQU (20-24 April 2014)

  Once a year, the Photo Society Club of SQU holds a one-week photography exhibition on their campus.  I was invited by an Omani friend who knows how much I love photography. I’m glad I went as the photographs were gorgeous.  Let me share some of my favorites here with you in this post.  The exhibition is taking place at the main Conference Hall on SQU campus with photos located on the ground floor and the 1st floor.  This one is titled “Window of Simplicity” and was taken by A’Shima Nasser Al-Ghdmai, a student of the College of Arts and Social Sciences.  “Fisher” by Mohammed Bin Salim Al-Nahdi  This interesting piece is titled “Full of Hope” and was submitted by Lujaina Bint Qais Al Balushi.  “Sunset” by Mohammed Bin Salim Al Nahdi (Interesting that 2 of my favorite pics are from the same gentleman!)  “Radiance Morning” by Ahmed Bin Maqbool Al Maimani  One of several wonderful macro shots submitted by Talib Abdullah Al-Busaidi from the College of Engineering. This one is titled “Cordiality“.   “Above the Sky” by Munther Mohammed Al Waili from the College of Engineering  “Lkhwer Sands” by Ammar Yahya Al-Mashaikhi from the College of Economics and Political Sciences  Wow! I’d love to know the story behind this photograph!  It’s appropriately titled “The Explosion” and was taken by Yousf Rashid Al-Naabi from the College of Engineering.  This photo, “Hidden Things” is expected to win 1st prize which would put 40o OR in the winner’s pocket. (2nd prize -200 OR, 3rd prize -100 OR)  The photographer is Alla Thani Al-Bahri from the College of Engineering.  It’s hard not to appreciate this one when you consider the talent and planning behind such a shot. The promoters of the Wameed Exhibition used this photo for some of their promotional posters which tells you it’s up there as one of the top pics to beat.  “The Mountain Girl” by Balqees Khalfan Al Rashdi from the College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences  “Sardine Season” by Anas Mohammed Al Dheeb from the College of Economics and Political Sciences  “Grip” by Uhoud Salim Al-Hadhrami from the College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences  Mr. Abdullah Al Harthi, the ex-president of the Photo Society, who was very helpful showing guests like me around! 🙂  Every guest had the option of voting for their favorite picture.  It was a hard choice but I finally voted for sunset.  Guests to the Wameed Exhibtion have the option of getting their photo taken for only 500 baizas.  Yours truly with one of my old students, Sulaiman.  I think we’re going for the “gangsta’ look” here, haha! 😉  We only had to wait 2 minutes to get the photo printed!  Today (the 24th) is the last day of the exhibition.  Sultan Qaboos University has some truly talented photographers on campus! It was a pleasure to see such fine photography.

If you enjoyed this post, you might want to subscribe to SQUPhoto on youtube.  Here are 2 of their videos I enjoyed:

SQU Timelapse Electric Muscat

Special Visit by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Honourable John Baird, to Oman

 

http://www.timesofoman.com/News/32662/Article-Oman-to-have-new-honorary-Canadian-consul-soon-Canada-FM

Just pics for now. More later…got a job and all! 🙂 What a great evening at the Diplomatic Club!

BBC World Service – “Accepting the Other” – Faith in Oman (Episode 1 of 2)

                                                         The podcast (radio) series from BBC titled “Heart and Soul” “explores the role of faith, spirituality and religious practice in the lives of people around the world.

In the last episode, they discussed religious tolerance in Oman.

Listen to the 1st episode of this 2 part look at Oman.  It is 29 minutes long.

Here are some of the parts which I found fascinating:

• “Douglas Leonard is a protestant minister from the Reformed Church in America. He runs the Al Mana Center for Interfaith Understanding in Muscat.” “We have every kind of Christian church imaginable that worships here throughout the course of the week; so about 9 different Orthodox congregations, the Catholic Church and about 60 different Protestant congregations worship here throughout the course of the week. We’re hearing hymns coming out of the Orthodox church to our right, and to our left we can hear the preaching of I believe a Filipino congregation, so yeah, we can hear the sounds of ecumenism all around us.”
• In Nizwa (at 13:10): “We are in front of an old building, built of mud. Can you tell us what it is?” Doug Leonard: “Yeah, this is a traditional Ibāḍī mosque and ibadi mosques were constructed in a very simple way, very austere. So you can see that this is just a simple square structure. Now this mosque is thought to be one of the oldest mosques in all of Oman. It’s Called “The Mosque of the Kibotane” because there are 2 directions of prayer; there is the direction of prayer towards Mecca, but this mosque is so old that originally when this was created as a mosque, the direction of prayer was Jerusalem. Currently, this building is dated at about 1500, so it’s a little over 500 years old. So this is not the original building, but it’s located on a footprint on a foundation that was the original Kibotane, the original, oldest mosque. And archaeologists also think this was a temple before Islam, that it was probably a temple both dedicated to the worship of many gods.” “I could still see a loudspeaker at the top. Do people still pray in this mosque?” “Yeah, people still pray in this mosque and actually, traditional ibadi mosques, instead of a minaret, the imam would just go on top of the roof and call with his voice to the people in the community.”
• The Assistant Grand Mufti, Kahlan al-Kharusi: “Tolerance and coexistence are not tactics Oman is playing for particular…political gains or because of particular pressure. They are principles that they believe in. They believe that their own existence is actually based on these principles and values. That’s why they do insist on being tolerant to believers of other faiths.”
• -(At 19:40) “This Protestant church (my church!) in Muscat has a multi-national congregation of hundreds from all five continents and again, all of them are expatriates as Oman has virtually no indigenous Christians.” (The reporter was very wise to use the word “virtually” because there are in fact Omani Christians.) “Like the other churches here, this church sits on a plot of land donated by the Sultan, and here, too, the basic mood is one of genuine enthusiasm for the freedom and support Christians enjoy in Oman, but it was here that I also heard some mild discontent…”
• “One of the restrictions is proselytization; so in other words you cannot try and convert another person to one’s own religion.” Douglas Leonard, “Interestingly, that prohibition is equal for Christians as it is for Muslims and the reason is Oman wants to be very careful and responsible in protecting against religious division and strife and what they realize is that if a person aggresively starts to go out trying to convert someone else to their religion, it’s going to cause religion and strife. It’s going to cause a problem.” (I strongly disagree here. Omanis often prostelize and they would never be discouraged from doing so. I have received many pamphlets and books from Omanis trying to get me to convert. This prohibition is not equal for Christians as it is for Muslims at all!)
• “But what about what many western observers see as the ultimate test of religious freedom in the Muslim world? Apostasy, or abandoning Islam in favor of another faith or no faith at all. I put the question to Ahmed al Mohani from the legal firm, Seslaw. I cannot remember seeing the penal code a crime defined as apostasy. The law is not entirely based on sharia. Law sharia forms a basis of legislation but we have other codes like the penal code, the commercial code, the banking code, that are not entirely in line with sharia, but what I know, that apostasy, if it happens as an individual affair, between you and God, it’s up to you. But the moment you turn that individual affair into a campaign, to ask people to leave their faith, particularly Islam, then you will be accused of causing public disorder, and that is a punishable crime.” “Any individual who takes such a decision is not obliged to declare this publicly.” The Assistant Grand Mufti, Kahlan al-Kharusi: “When it becomes public, or it becomes associated with insulting other sacred religious symbols, then, yes, in this case it is going to be taken to court.”
• “If a Muslim, an Omani Muslim, decides to embrace Christianity instead, and decides to go to church instead of the mosque on a Friday, is that considered a private matter or a public declaration? “Yes, it is a public declaration although it is not associated with insulting his own previous religion, so it is considered in this case apostasy and it is dealt with through the judiciary. Such an answer is unlikely to satisfy campaigners for religious freedom abroad but no cases of apostasy have been reported in Oman in recent years.”