Now that's what I call Qatar 33 : The Islamic Fantastic Four

Dear All,

I have been quite a bit of a socialite over the last few days mingling with people and networking at various events in Qatar. I may or may not have made new friends, only time will tell if I call the people or people call me whom I swapped numbers with.

So where have I been making my new acquaintances I hear you ask, well it was at the 4th Doha Academy Conference, which brought together renowned Muslims around the world to give talks on their respective fields. Those who I went to see is Haji Noor Deen, (a Chinese Calligrapher) Sheik Hamaza Yusaf (A scholar who is an American re-revert,(I use re-revert as in Islam, it is believed that everyone is Born a Muslim so if one converts later to Islam, its believed they are converting back to their original faith)), Sami Yusaf (a Arab-British Singer who is famous across the Muslim world, the Mike Jackson of the Muslim World), and Peter Sanders (A Photographer, whom is a British revert)

Now to most of you, you will have very little idea of who any of those people were, however each of them have had a profound impact on not only Islamic culture but the World. Below are short profiles on the 4.


(Sourced http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/middleeastnow/word-into-art/artists/guanjiang.html
Haji Noor Deen Mi Guanjiang
Born Shandong Province, 1963

Haji Noor Deen is a prominent calligrapher who in 1997 became the first Chinese Muslim to be awarded the Egyptian Certificate of Arabic Calligraphy, and subsequently became a member of the Association to Egyptian Calligraphy. He teaches Arabic Calligraphy at the Islamic College in Zhen Zhou, China and is also a researcher into Islamic cultures at the Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhen Zhou. He has given several lectures on Islam in China And has participated in a number of workshops and talks on Arabic Calligraphy worldwide, including at Harvard University,USA;the University of Cambridge, UK;and, in 2005, the Globe Theatre, London. Between 2000 and 2003 he received a grant to tour and display his work at several universities in the United States.

Hamza Yusuf

(Source http://www.zaytuna.org/teacherMore.asp?id=9)

Hamza Yusuf was born in Washington State and raised in Northern California. In 1977, he became Muslim and subsequently travelled to the Muslim world and studied for ten years in the U. A. E., Saudi Arabia, as well as North and West Africa. He received teaching licenses in various Islamic subjects from several well-known scholars in various countries. After ten years of studies abroad, he returned to the USA and took degrees in Religious Studies and Health Care. He has travelled all over the world giving talks on Islam. He also founded Zaytuna Institute which has established an international reputation for presenting a classical picture of Islam in the West and which is dedicated to the revival of traditional study methods and the sciences of Islam. Shaykh Hamza is the first American lecturer to teach in Morocco's prestigious and oldest University, the Karaouine in Fes. In addition, he has translated into modern English several classical Arabic traditional texts and poems. Shaykh Hamza currently resides in Northern California with his wife and five children.
SAMI YUSUF

(source http://www.samiyusufonline.com/bio/index.html)



Born into an azerian family& raised in the UK, Sami started developing his natural vocal & musical skills seeing his father who is a very renowned musician & thus the promising Muslim singer was discovered at a very early age by his family to become a renowned artist himself.

Sami learnt to play a lot of instruments giving all the credits to his father who was his first mentor. Later he completed through obtaining scholarship to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London,

Soon after the new-comer was ready to get involved in the contemporary fine art or we can say islamic art by releasing his first hit AlMUA'LLIM album.

The Muslim singer who has just released his album in both English & Arabic has had a long history in the Muslim music industry and he is already the best selling muslim artist in the world. He merges the rhythm, completes it with words, and charges it with spirituality in his voice so that all beams with the sense of soul.





(source http://www.middleeastuk.com/culture/art/sanders/_


Peter Sanders
"..often when I'm taking pictures it seems as if I'm chasing a moment, like a beautiful bird that keeps escaping you"


Peter Sanders is a world renowned photographer. Born in London, he established himself in the 1960s shooting many of the pop stars of that era including Jimi Hedrix, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones and The Doors. In 1971 he was granted the unique opportunity to photograph the rituals of Hajj or annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. These images appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer, among many other major journals in recognition of their rareness.

His empathy with the people he meets in many remote places in the world is reflected in his ability to capture unique and natural poses of people who may otherwise find his occuption suspect or intruding. His subject matter is a colourful mosaic of faces, facades and natural scenery and his talents as a photographer bring to home the beauty of distant lands and people, stealing all the colours of the rainbow that bridges east and west.

From the City of the Dead to the City of Light; from two million pilgrims on Hajj to the Empty Quarter; from the anguish of the impoverished to the wealthy cities of Saudi Arabia, Sanders' work opens the door to the unique, exotic lands of the Middle East, Africa, India, Central Asia and into the vast world of Islam.





As you can tell all these people are unique in their own individual ways. I have the fortunate pleasure to have met them all and spend time with them and the people around them. All apart from Haji Noor Deen could speak English, so I was able to communicate very well with them all, which was nice, as I was able to discuss thing openly with them. I have taken many pictures of the events and will be putting them up on facebook in the near future. The work by Peter Sanders, is truly exceptional, and its not just the photos he does but the captions that come with the photos fit so perfectly, that it adds greater meaning to the photos. If you get the chance to go to any of his exhibitions I would higly recommend it. The same goes for Haji Noor Deen, I have seen his work during my China travels, and was aware of that type of Calligraphy, however when you first see it, its so amazing, how two of the most ancient forms of writing are intertwined Arabic and Chinese again like the photos and the captions fit so well together.

I wont go into Sami Yusaf, except non-Muslims should listen to him, as he has a very good voice, and he has most of his songs in English and its just different to what you probably usually listen to.

Now regarding Sheik Hamza Yusaf, well I am a fan, I mean there are people who are not keen on the way he teaches, however I think the way he explains things are superb. He gives Western Muslims the right type of examples of when he speaks and isn't detached from society. In one of his talks he was saying how in the US there are 40,000 think-tanks, and that they are a key component in any society, and that if the Arab countries are to progress they will need to building think-tanks. Though the US has so many think-tanks, I don't quite see myself however the point in having so many think-tanks, as the US foreign policy and the domestic one to a extent is actually decided by a select few so whets the point in trying to think of new ideologies or thoughts, when really the impact is a minimum. He was also stating how, when we see tragedy in the world, we are often confused and don't understand the reasons behind it, and he gave an example of if a Ant was walking through the carpet, they wouldn't be able to differentiate anything within the carpet the way we can see the carpet, and the over-all design of the carpet, and like this its Gods view of the world. Its a common saying within religions that everything happens for a reason, and we just need to trust God, and I have seen many people not able to trust God anymore after something bad happened in their lives, and they didn't understand why, I thank-fully haven't had anything THAT terrible, and I hope when the time comes I will be able to Trust God.

Anyway thats it for me now, I know its slighly different to my usual entries, however I thought I would try somethign a little different, and hopefully enlighten a few people.

Take care

Asif