Flashes from the Muslim World

Undersecretary at the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Sheikh Awad Alanzi, met with Maldives Minister of Islamic Affairs, Dr. Ahmed Zahir Ali, in Male. During the meeting, the Maldivian minister voiced his country’s keenness to enhance cooperation with Saudi Arabia in various fields. Sheikh Alanzi also met with preachers and scholars in the Maldives in the presence of the religious attaché at the Kingdom’s embassy in India. Sheikh Badr bin Nasser Alanzi, who supervises the work of the Ministry’s preachers in the Maldives and Nepal.

Bahrain was ranked first in the Middle East and Africa for attracting the highest tourism capital investment in 2020, according to the FDI Intelligence Tourism Investment Report 2021. Last year, major investments from UAE-based property developers helped Bahrain’s tourism sector remain buoyant and created jobs during the worst ever period for the global tourism industry. Bahrain secured USD492 million of tourism capital investment in 2020, mainly made up of investments from global property developers.

The Muslim World League and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change have launched a new partnership to bring together their common vision to serve the future generation of youth. There are about 1.8 billion young people in the world and many of them face a myriad of challenges, such as poverty, violence, exclusion and negative perceptions. They are not getting the information they need or learning the necessary skills to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world. They also feel that they do not have a secure platform that gives them the confidence to share their opinions and make choices that affect their future and the way they live. The MWL and the TBI will work together over the next three years to deliver a global education program to equip more than 100,000 young people aged thirteen to seventeen in more than eighteen countries around the world with critical thinking and dialogue skills. This will contribute to building greater mutual understanding, tolerance and trust between young people and their communities and correct perceptions of religious and cultural diversity.

The General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques has completed all preparations to receive Umrah performers after increasing the capacity to 70,000 per day. Additional services the Presidency has provided in conjunction with the existing precautionary measures include the development of thermal cameras and visual sorting operations. The sanitation process will utilize II Robots that work with AL 20 biocare devices with dry steam and 500 sterilization pumps. The Presidency will also provide 500 electronic soap dispensers and 250 fans distributed throughout the Grand Mosque’s courtyards. The Presidency also increased the production capacity of Zamzam water to more than 300,000 bottles per day, which will be distributed to Umrah performers and worshippers.

The General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques has allocated 25 new paths at the Mataf courtyard in the Grand Mosque in Makkah, including four for the elderly and people with disabilities. The upgrade comes as part of plans to manage crowds amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities will also apply all preventive and precautionary measures to stop the spread of the new airborne disease on the new paths of the courtyard. The Presidency has benefitted from numerous studies and mechanisms that have helped it build smooth and organized entries and exits at the holy site.

Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Dr. Yousef al-Othaimeen, has urged for more efficient short, medium, and long-term strategies to further build the food production capacities of OIC member states. Al-Othaimeen made the appeal in an address to the Fourth Meeting of the General Assembly of the Islamic Organization for Food Security, held virtually under the Chairmanship of Kazakhstan. The Islamic Organization for Food Security was established in 2016 as a specialized institution of the OIC dealing with agriculture, rural development and food security.

If Egypt’s population growth continues unchecked, there will be no change in living conditions, said President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. He added that citizens’ awareness of population growth must be raised. During a televised telephone call on the Sada al-Balad channel, he said that the state has taken serious steps regarding the development of education. “Our goal with reform is to change the current situation for better,” he said adding that “as long as there is population growth in such a large way, we will not seen development.”

The Egyptian Ministry of Endowments has decided to prevent the entry of books on extremism and the Muslim Brotherhood to all mosques in Egypt and to remove those already there within the coming fifteen days. In an urgent statement, the minister directed the punishment of any official neglecting these orders.  There was also an urgent warning that all Imams take a pledge to not allow any books to be included in mosque libraries without permission from the General Administration of Religious Guidance in the Ministry’s general office.

Uzbekistan and the Islamic Development Bank have approved six new investment projects in multiple fields. No values were revealed for these projects. The projects are related to education, health care, improving quality of life in rural areas and small and medium enterprises. The IDB group has so far supported over 100 projects aimed at the socio-economic development of Uzbekistan.

The Secretary-General of the Muslim World League has praised the World Health Organization at a Swiss conference for its efforts in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. The event, hosted by the WHO in Geneva, also included the Director-General of the organization, Tedros Adhan, and former Prime Minister of Norway Kjell Bondevik. Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkarim al-Issa said, “In the time of COVID-19, the World Health Organization has become the global peacemaker from the danger of a deadly enemy that has targeted our world without exception.” He hailed the WHO’s outstanding efforts in reducing suffering amid the pandemic, labelling them as “efforts to achieve world peace.”

[COMPILED BY: SYED NEHAL ZAHEER]