Kuwait City – In the Arab world, it is held as an unadulterated truth that the Qur'an is best read in its original classical Arabic. But is keeping it closed off to further translation supporting God's will or suppressing it? This is but one such question raised with the recent publication of professor Tarif Khalidi's "The Qur'an: A New Translation" in English.
Read MoreI just came back from New York and once again, I've gained weight. In the past I dined with Jenny Craig, sweated to The Oldies, weighed in with Weight Watchers and rowed enough oceans to charter the Queen Mary with Frequent Rower Miles. But try as I might to shed my unwanted weight, my aspirations collapse at the Ministry of the Menu.
Read MoreAll art is at once surface and symbol. Those that go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art mirrors. - Oscar Wilde
Read MoreChildren depend on routine. It comforts them, gives them security. Weekends are the break in routine for children, a sort of new routine in itself, a change of pace all kids look forward to. I grew up the most fortunate of kids. My grandmother, Mama Sabeeha, was a significant part of both my weeks and my weekends.
Read MoreLast spring I received a text message from my then 9-year old son Hamad asking me if I knew who Def Leppard were. Hoping he was in the special needs section of a zoo and that his spelling had the better of him, I asked if they were next to the blind bats and the laughing hyenas. They're a rock band he replied. That put them a couple of rungs above dumb father.
Read MoreLast summer, I was planning a visit back to the forests of my childhood, to stay in a cabin in the woods of my memory. The cabin is where it has always been- perched on a cove on Lake Ossipee in New Hampshire in a forest that goes by the name of Sherwood Forest.
Read MoreHow many of you read JD Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" when you were in high school? I remember the novel as if it were yesterday. I became enamored with the writer and went on to read his other novels.
Read MoreLori Durocher Eulogy
Given by Naif Al-Mutawa
At Our Lady of Fatima
In New London, New Hampshire
On Saturday, January 19, 2008
On New Year's Day I was blessed with the birth of my fifth son. I called my parents to tell them the good news that Rakan Al-Mutawa had been born. But my father told me he had another name picked out for his newest grandson.
Read MoreKuwait City- It was the first time I realised that the very bright, young and privileged can also be very foolish. In the summer of 1989, a couple of my American friends, dressed in Arab garb borrowed from me and toting water rifles, "terrorised" the campus of Brown University.
Read MoreToday is 2 July 2009, and if global statistics are correct, I have already lived the first half of my life. Life is short. That is why it pains me when I am away from you.
Few things are as important as your future, but your future is tied to that of every other young child.
When I was 20 years old I boarded a train for Auschwitz.
The year was 1992. Courtesy of 10 years at a predominantly Jewish summer camp in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I was probably the only Arab child that ever grew up fearing the Holocaust.
The tumors had been growing for as long as I had known him. They had spread wherever they could, blocking every effort to reduce their size and number. They were entrenched in the fabric of our society, draining whatever of life’s resources to keep them alive and growing.
Read MoreEarlier this summer I received a call from Salman Ahmed, author of Rock and Roll Jihad and cofounder of the popular band Junoon. We first met as part of the Arts and Culture initiative at the US, Islamic World Forum and have become fast friends.
Read MoreKuwait City - A friend in New York recently asked me what Ramadan was like. Borrowing a chapter from my 3-year-old son's playbook, I tried to explain it in constructs that would be familiar to her. I asked her to imagine a traditional American Thanksgiving with all her extended family present.
Read MoreI had been granted access to the elite of the elite. I was now sharing their oxygen. Now it was up to me to convince them that I was not just air.
As the recipient of the 2009 Social Entrepreneur of the year award for the Middle East, the hosts of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Schwab Foundation, invited me to attend.
Yesterday, we heard that THE 99 animated series will soon be broadcast into 60 million American homes. Other global broadcasters are lining up to follow suit. It looks like THE 99 will soon be the success we all hoped for and its new superhero role models that celebrate our common values instead of playing to the fears of our tiny differences will become the multicultural force that unites us.
Read More(CNN) -- Fifteen years ago I walked out of a mosque in silent protest of the imam's sermon. Outside, the heat of the desert sun could hardly match the fire of the rhetoric being spewed forth inside.
Read MoreWe’ve heard it from our leaders before. The Arab world was the bastion of arts and sciences. The Arab world was the leader in science, medicine, and mathematics. Our libraries at Alexandria and Baghdad and Andalusia were the envy of the world.
Read MoreGood morning. I am honored to be here today at the invitation of my fellow classmate who I attended nursery through high school with, Sheikha Dana Nasser Al-Sabah. I want to apologize in advance Sheikha Dana as I will be mentioning my age but not yours.
Read MoreLast weekend, millions of Americans (and I) tuned in to watch the premiere of the sixth season of Showtime’s Dexter. The show’s protagonist is a serial killer who follows a personal code of harming only those who have harmed others. Fans of the show identify with him, wondering who his next victim will be and hoping he doesn’t get caught by the police.
Read MoreWhen I switched schools in the 5th grade I encountered my first culture shock. The new school wouldn’t allow me to spend recess in the library. I had to actually do some of the things that I preferred to read about. Sports were so much more exciting to me when I read about others performing them.
Read Moren all heroes’ journeys, the wise old mentor inevitably appears to give the hero magical gifts to help him through his slew of ordeals. This is par for the course in good story telling and the best real life stories always include them. Although I have been blessed with a variety of mentors in the various aspects of my life, Larry Durocher was my wise old mentor.
Read MoreParents who fail to discipline their offspring properly are creating a generation of angry children who lash out in the classroom. Pupils are twice as likely to be aggressive and disruptive if they had parents who were violent, critical or inconsistent in what they allowed them to get away with at home.
Read MoreSeven years ago, THE 99 were granted approvals to Saudi Arabia. What began as a suspicious relationship, my not expecting approvals to begin with, and their suspicion of the subversive nature of the content we were at loggerheads.
Read MoreMany years ago, I was the volleyball counsellor at a summer camp in New England. It was 1990 and I was fit for five minutes. It seems there’s always an injury I can blame my (lack of) fitness on. That summer was no different.
Read MoreShortly before the New Year, I received an email from Thomson Reuters informing me that THE 99, an initiative of Teshkeel Media Group, one that I had carefully and meticulously staged to reflect values that Muslims share with the rest of humanity.
Read MoreAfter completing my graduate education in New York City, armed with a doctorate in clinical psychology and an MBA, I was toying with the idea of not moving back to Kuwait. I didn’t share that with anyone but didn’t have to.
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