“What did you do there without somebody who could help you! It is very, very dangerous and you could have been shot!”

It all began when I decided to join Rashad to film the last part of the story about him, the guy who´s village I went to visit in the last report, during Eid Al Adha. I knew he had told me he lived in a pretty rough area, where he a month and a half ago had to run zigzag over the street to catch a dahab (small mini van) to work, to avoid getting shot by snipers on the roof. But he said it was calm right now, so we caught a dahab at Tahrir Square and set of for his home. I should have realized as soon as the dahab turned right before going crossing the bridge over the battle ground over Zubairy Street and Kentucky, that I was in for a scare.

“You see how the buildings have been shelled” , Rashad suddenly pointed out and we came to a heavily guarded check point, where we were briefly stopped and checked amongst loads of sand sacks and Rashad said; “We are now entering Ali Mohsen´s area.”

Now General Ali Mohsen is president Ali Abdullah Saleh´s right hand who defected back in April when the demonstrators started getting targeted and shoot by what is said government thugs or soldiers. He together with the big tribal leader of the biggest clan Hashid, shejkh Al Ahmar, are the two biggest opponents to the president, these three have divided the city in between them one could say (we live in the Saleh part, dominated by Tahrir Square and pro-Saleh protesters)  and after another short stretch of bombarded buildings and soldiers covered by sand bags in pretty much every corner, Rashad pointed to a road ending with loads of piled up sand bags and a flag:

“That is Hashaba and Al Ahmar´s area”.

I guess I was excited on one hand to be there, but worried on the other and asked Rashad:

“Do you really think I can film here?”

We got off the loaded dahab and walked to the single man’s hostel where Rashad had recently moved together with his elder brother. It was a small room where 2-7 people shared a sleeping space and it was a stop over for the two until they knew about the future. Rashad had also lost his job at the Irianian Embassy since I last saw him, since they said he had taken a longer vacation over Eid than he should have. And since no labour laws exist, you can just kick people like that. His brother had been employed by a government agency since the troubles began in March and hadn´t been paid a Yemeni rial since he started. They employed 18 000 young men in a day, to get them off the streets demonstrating against the government. The filming in the room went fine. Than they all got hungry, 2 friends where there visiting, and we walked through some really busy streets, both with heavily armed soldiers, heavily armed tribes men from the Al Ahmar area and generally, many people screaming:

“Take a photo!” since I was filming Rashad and his friends walking, or:

“Get off the street and stop filming!”

I should have known already than, what was going to happen, but Rashad said:

“Don´t worry, just film!”

He and his brother got into at least one serious gruff and screaming game with two fellas saying they were security. And after a great Salta lunch (salta is a Turkish word for leftovers from the Ottoman times when Yemenis just to beg Turkish family´s for leftovers and everything they got they put in a bowl and cooked it) we walked back and for some unknown reason they brought me very close to the heavily armed dived between the Mohsen troops and Al Ahmar´s and the surrounding buildings had been heavily shelled. I aksed Rashad if I could take a photo and a few seconds later and soldier came running and accused me for taking a photo of his corner of sand sacks and a short argument followed where I was asked for papers, which I said i didn´t have, to show the photos i took, which i didn´t show and it ended up Rashad and his brother got us out of the problem.

“We go through this every day” , Rashad said.

We went back to the room, did some more filmed interviews and chewed khat. And than, according to my notes and had a final scene to film, well, one of the two last, him demonstrating at Change Square and him taking a dahab to work. So we went to his normal corner and after standing there 10 minutes waiting for the Tahrir Square dahab, a soldier came and said we had to come with him to his commander and explain what we were doing. I saw Rashad look worried and that scared me. I stopped a taxi and told Rashad:

“Get in and let us leave!”

That caused a lot of alarm and the taxi, of course, got stopped and we were forced to go to a group of heavily armed soldiers sitting in a street corner, covered by sand bags and they were really upset. I thought:

“How do I get out of this, since all my contacts are more or less pro-Saleh?”

Suddenly one soldier sitting next to the guy who was in charge, all ten of them sitting in a line chewing khat, and they seemed to sit in order of their rank, the boss best covered and the youngest at the end, in the open, easily hit by a sniper, well, the second in command started to speak some English and said:

“You are in serious, serious problem.”

Rashad was in the same time passionately defending us and I explained for the bloke who spoke English, that I loved Yemen and its people and was only filming Rashad who was a friend on his way to work, but the soldier, a sergeant, cut in and told me he had been at University for years, but the lack of money had forced him into the army and now the revolution was on, and he was fighting to free the country of Saleh. Suddenly he asked me:

“I have seen you on TV. You are a news anchor aren´t you? Well, welcome to Yemen and hope you show the world what an evil man Saleh is. By the way, do you have a family?”

“Yes I am and have a wonderful daughter named Belquis! And you?”

“Yes, I have three boys!” he said happily.

And that changed the outcome of our problem, we talked almost for half an hour until they said we could go and said the reason they stopped us, was that this was their job, which I could understand. Filled with adrenalin we got in a taxi and left the group continuing their khat chew.

“They were really I nice group of guys” , Rashad said after he said he had been very worried and thought they would let me go, but put him in a cell; “And I explained that I was out of work, had 8 years in University but no job, came from Taizz and than he said we started the revolution and he was grateful for that. Thank God he was an educated person and he understood!”

Back at Tahrir we sat down for a sweet tea and kind of laughed from relief. It had been a close call and I was as always filled with adrenalin and I felt happy being old and free of the hot temper of my youth. Nowadays I never even raise my voice, just listen and wait and try to be nice and friendly. Gee, it works so much better!

Eva and Pam suddenly showed up, heading for the Old Town and our friends Hussein and Mohammed, so I said goodbye to Rashad and joined the smiling ladies. Whilst Pam and Eva went to the females of a family to document their life, I sat down with Hussein and Mohammed, Hussein came with a glass of home made wine and told me in an upset voice how stupid I had been. Than he and Mohammed continued to chew khat, we watched Al Jazeera and predicted that Bashar Assad would go before Saleh.

And this story is really the least interesting that has happened this week. I have met a lot of really important people. One of the, a very good friend I named The Self Made Man the last time I was here. (Read the story I wrote about him here.) Amazingly enough the story holds still today and my last prediction could soon be true!

More of that next week and why the whole family is going to the home of Yemeni demonstrations, Change Square, today after noon!

Finally, it is hard not getting emotionally involved with everything which is going on here. There´s no doubt people in general are suffering, however, being here at this time, when history, possible slowly, is in the making, it is a very strong and profound feeling and wants me/us to be part of it. And as the Yemenis say, everything is politics here.

Photo of the Week, Spooky Sanaa or Spooks in Sanaa at http://500px.com/photo/3236775

Or see the professional gallery from Old Sanaa here!

I just got back to Sanaa from probably one of the most important excursions I have ever made!

I am bitten all over the body by bedbugs, I may have malaria, I am really, really tired and nobody in the city really believes that I was able to get the permit to leave the city, travel to Taizz which is the other serious flashpoint of the war in Yemen, as the locals call the battle between the Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents, and spend Eid al Adha in a village two hours south of the countries most populous city. And spend a week there as the first foreign visitor they had at least for the last 96 years and return without any problems to the city again. And get back with one kilo of smoked camel cheese from the covered bazaar of Taizz!

“There´s no way you will get a permission to leave the city as things are right now!” , I was told by pretty much everybody, when I tried to get a permit to go and visit my very good friend Rashad in his home village located in between two big mountains south of the country´s biggest city Taizz.

Rashad was my teacher last time I was in Yemen two years ago, preparing for my first major Expedition since Siberia, and I have been in touch with him since. He is, as most Yemenis today, going through some really, really hard times. He is working half time at the Iranian Embassy, since he speaks Persian and is a shia, but on his wage, about 300 euro a month, he supports 17 people. And the war forced him to send his wife, his studying brothers, and his 15 months old son back to the village. Because he lives on the border between an area dominated by the government and one of the main opponents, general Ali Mohsen. His neighbourhood have been badly shelled and he therefore sleeps in the hall of his apartment, to have as many walls in between himself and the outside world if hit by a rocket. A month ago it was so bad he had to run zigzag on the streets outside his house to catch a bus to work. He is an intellectual, 31 years of age, politically aware and one of the Yemenis around which a future middle class will, or should, be built. Once you get a big and influential middle class, in any country, than you have something of a safe base to build a country on. And he speaks fluent English, and as usual, when it comes to pretty much all analysis as regards to the situation in the country, it is based on people located in one of the three big cities, who never seems to venture outside these, because, if it is one thing I have learned from travelling, the heart of a country is NOT in the cities, it is in the villages. So, this would be a very important visit for anyone making political analysis! That is if I did get the permit to leave Sanaa. Which I did get after 4 days of hard work. The solution was me going personally to the so called tourist police myself and what happened is so much Yemen!

“No way, it is impossible!” the person in charge told me directly, “The Minister of Interior have personally told us not to give out any permits. The risk is to big.”

However, as always, you can discuss virtually any issue with the Yemenis. They’re amongst the most conversational people on earth. They love to talk and discuss pretty much any subject. So I just told him truthfully about my love to the country and its people and asked:

“What would the danger be if I travelled together with Rashad to his village? I know there was people killed in Taizz yesterday I said, but we would just pass through. And how can it be safe for Rashad but unsafe for me? It doesn´t make sense!”

He agreed and made a few phone calls and said, ok, if I fly there, I could go to Taizz. But I said, I want to see the scenery, which I have heard is amongst the best on earth on the road to Taizz. Plus that I wanted to see if it all was as dangerous as everybody seems to think. I have already realised after arriving in Sanaa, after all those incredibly overwhelming warning stories of the danger, that people tend to overdo things, especially if you are in media or in security professionally as many of our friends. Sanaa has been dead safe so far. And, I also wanted to see Yarim, the place where the Swede Peter Forsskål died on the first known Expedition exploring Yemen at the end of the 18^th Century, to so called Carsten Neighbur Expedition.

“Sorry, it is impossible than” , the person in charge said with a smile.

Me and my new teacher, Abdul Aziz, who was my translator, we left the office with a negative answer, but laughing, since everyone was so kind, funny and helpful. When we passed the gate, the young and heavily armed guard, asked what had happened and where we wanted to go, so we told him and he exclaimed:

“But Taizz isn´t dangerous at all. I am from there!”

So he took us upstairs to the real boss, a great old man, who smiled, joked and laughed and he said he understood I wanted to see his beautiful country close up, so he called the guy who had said no, who in an instant came running up and asked which village we wanted to do to and when Abdual Aziz told him, he said:

“I come from the next village!”

So that is how I got the permit!

Next morning I ran through Tahrir Square, which is occupied by Saleh supporters and their big tents, and ran next to the great walls of the walled city to Bab Al Yemen, where I met Rashad and boarded a bus to Taizz. The supposed 5 hours took almost 8 hours. All those vicious check points I had been warned about, by Rashad as well, who a month earlier had been stopped at one, been kicked out of the bus by the Republican Guards, a hardcore unit run by Salehs son Ahmed, and forced to walk all the night to get help. Just because he was a single man and these loners were thought to be amongst the protesters against the regime. Well, we weren’t stopped once. Once in Taizz we grabbed a taxi, passed through the area were 7 people had been killed two days earlier by shelling, avoided a heard of beggars who showed their children covered by serious wounds when first seen, but when checked more clear, they were all fakes, however, this specific area looked like a bombed out Beirut, and we there after passed through the city and headed out for the village. It took another two hours and we arrived on a really, really bad dirt road late at night in the darkness, but it was such a relief stepping out into the silence of the village and the fresh mountain air. Country life!

Now, Rashad had told me that as far as he had heard, based on the word of the oldest man in the village, a 96 year old, they have never had a foreign visitor. So there were some pressures on Rashad that I didn´t know beforehand. I was kind of the Ambassador for All Foreigners and my behaviour would be important. So, my visit could well determine whether more foreigners could visit the village in the future. And, for Rashad, it was important that I personally got a good opinion of the village and its inhabitants since he knew why I was there.

Rashad lived in a simple house built by stones, I think six rooms hosting 17 people, and built in stone on the outside but by clay on the inside. Easy to keep clean, low ceilings to keep cool and just a few windows to let through the wind. They did get electricity two years back and had running water and as the rest of Yemen, electricity a couple of hours a day. So the house was beautifully lit up by kerosene lamps. Simple but very comfortable. The family was extra ordinary hospitable and treated me like a King. We were served a great meal of mashed beans and giant pieces of home made bread plus uncounted cups of sweet tea. I fell a sleep immediately inside the meeting room, or mafrag as it is called in Yemen, on the floor. The beans made me release unknown amounts of air and when I woke up next morning I realised some of his 5 brothers had slept in the same room. Not a sound from them when I woke a few times in the complete darkness.

Rashad had returned to the village for Eid Al Adha, as most other men we met during my time there and he had brought loads of clothes and presents, which was expected, but which of course strained his economy badly. His elder brother had opted not to leave Sanaa, he didn´t have the money to buy presents. Or not even a ticket. He worked for a government agency, but hadn´t been payed a wage for seven months!

For me the visit in the village was not only a great time, but very important since I needed to know if my thoughts on the country was right or wrong! As I said earlier, the problem with the media today, is that all journalists and analytics base themselves in the cities and base their opinions on what goes around there. But the cities have never, and never will be, the heart of a community or country. What I learned during these four lovely days in the village gave me a very important perspective of the situation and its people.

Most discussions in the country are done by meeting in a mafrag, a meeting room, and chewing khat. And since this was Eid and the wedding season we pretty much immediately ending up in a mafrag belonging to a neighbour who was getting married. Now a wedding is really straining the economy for families of the groom. The dowry is at least 800 000 Yemeni rials, which is like 3000 US dollars. For this reason, today, most men can´t get married until say they´ve reached at least 35 years of age. Half of the dowry goes directly to the father of the bride. The rest is spent on gifts and food and, most of all, khat for all the guests. Rashad got married to his wife two years back and still is in debt. Most of the partners are picked by the mothers, sisters and the women of the groom’s family. So Rashad´s wife is his uncles daughter.

“What do you think about the issue of dowry?” I asked at one khat chew and they all said more or less the same: “It wouldn´t be a problem if we had work and good wages.”

There’s no doubt the khat is extremely important to most Yemenis. Due to a bad harvest season and the war, there was little khat around and most of the days of the village was kind of dominated by the urge to get more khat. I, of course, as a visitor, to be accepted, one has to eat and live like the locals, so I did of course chew khat. I have to admit, just as the last time I was here, it hardly affects me. It is more like the effects of a few cups of strong coffee, nothing else. But what I like though with the issue of khat chews is the meeting of all people in the mafrag and the discussions that take place. I literally spent a whole working day all together chewing khat and learned an enormous amount of things of great value. Everything from sufism to how the village buries there dead. We talked a lot about politics and there’s no doubt that the sitting, legally elected president of Abdullah Ali still has supporters. People who thinks he has done a lot of good to the country. Like building a functioning infrastructure, schools and so on, because this just didn´t exist properly before he came to power 30 years back. However, what I like the most with the kat chews is that it shows that Yemen really have a base for democracy, because in a kat chew, no matter what your opinions, you have a say without getting attacked to badly. Now of course, most kat chews I attended and took part in, is all male. Women have their own, as political as the men’s.

As regards to the women in the village; Most of the time in the village I just saw them running away in fear of the nasrani, the Christian, as was also the case initially in Rashad´s home. But after a few days the women of the house moved around freely as normal. It was just a case of the worries of the unknown. The older women of the village were dressed in very colourful clothes and were uncovered. And I saw them working hard throughout the visit. Very few of them had work outside the village and lived their traditional roles.

Everybody in the village was very happy, even honoured; that I was there and the dignity I was shown lacks most experiences I have gone through as a traveller…..

(I wrote this section between 5 and 7 in the morning and than the power cut arrived and it is now 6 p.m, and since it is Eid, Sanaa is dead. No people, no sounds of the war and nothing gets done, so I still need a few hours to reload all batteries. So the only written work I can do is a few hours every day. But Eva is in such a brilliant mood every day, so there´s not a dead second!)

…power is back….the village just to belong to the Jewish community which had been present in the country a long time before the arrival of the prophet and Islam, but most of them left the country when Israel was proclaimed 1949. An operation called the Magic Carpet. The village has a Jewish name and when they left, the land was shared between the inhabitants who’d lived their for a long time. Rashad´s father, a builder, moved in afterwards, which means they can’t own any land except where they’re house stands. They are also too poor to be able to vie any power. The area is still under the rule of a local sheikh, which I met and who was dressed as a sanaani, with the belt and jambiyya (see attached photo) and really nice, but it is an inherited power on which a lot of Abdullah Ali Saleh has built his governance.

The wedding started very early one morning with professional drummers showing up banging incessantly throughout the day and since the groom were a neighbour to Rashad we went over there first as guests and than Rashad was their to meet the other guests coming from the villages. Lots of kisses and dancing started and around lunch we were all invited to a big meal of meat, rice and sweets in the mafrag and than we all started a long session of khat chewing, 6 hours, and it was so interesting so we missed joining the other men who set of in a long caravan to the home village of the bride accompanied by the drummers! In dark they returned with the bride and when she reached the house of the man she had never met, his sister, mother and their female friends were there to make her feel welcome. Loads of fireworks exploded when she arrived.

The Eid Al Adha celebrations followed the next day with the family slaughtering a sheep as a sign that God intervened when Abraham felt forced to sacrifice his son Ismail. A big lunch followed where we all, like hungry vultures, ate from a big plate of all what the sheep could offer, rice, sweets and other delicious plates. Another khat session followed after a long walk through the village together with one of Rashads best friends, who showed us his khat farm, a real money maker, and he told me that the school had one teacher on 120 pupils and that was a serious problem they were facing. The village survived on people like Rashad, who was working outside the village, sending money back. Even though it was beautifully tucked in by two mountain rages, the farmed land wasn´t offering enough to the fast growing population. The growing number of people had also virtually taken all burnable trees in the niegbourhood and a bad erosion didn´t look to far away. Before I left I asked Rashad if he would like to live forever in the village he loved, gained weight every time he returned and he knew inside out:

“The future lies in Sanaa” , he answered; “And I am used to what the city has to offer in intellectual challenges and they just doesn´t exist in the village, if you have big ambitions as I have!”

I returned the long arduous way next day, met a really dirty, polluted and run down Taizz, ran into an armoured vehicle pointing its barrel on me, very nasty indeed and took the bus back to Sanaa and only got stopped at the last check point before entering the city by a very improper soldier from the Republican Guard, but my permit was enough to cool him down that I wasn´t carrying any cameras…

Summary: Great trip! I did learn a lot, got some of the best footage I have ever filmed and 5 minutes of the documentary done, BUT, I also did get a major tip where to get good camels for a reasonable fee, Bait Al Faqih! And being a country boy myself of a meagre background with a dad being a builder, is very helpful. Most people thought I was a scientist or a doctor and when learning that my background was simple, teared down some unnecessary walls of communication.

Back in Sanaa. It is very silent, no movement, according to local media, there might be some major developments soon on the political scene, like Saleh signing the GCC agreement. And Eva?

We don´t regret a second bringing her! She has acclimatized quickly, put on fat, met and sees the most extra ordinary things every day and she is in a better mood than I have ever seen before. We move around pretty much everywhere and it all feels very safe. I have seen the Lion King quite few times though…only way to put her to sleep….Pamelas research is moving forward according to plan.

By the way, the other week I took the best shot I ever have, see http://500px.com/photo/2985344

For more images, go to this photo gallery!

Eid al-Adha , The Festival of Sacrifice, is coming up for all our worlds Muslims, 1.2 billion in total, representing  28% of the worlds population. It marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca. In Oman it also means that everybody is taking ten days off work, everything is closed, our work is brought to a total stand still and a lot of locals have rushed to all the malls in Muscat to buy presents. My friend Kamil calls it the Muslim Christmas. He and his family will fly for a short holiday to Bahrain, three days of additional shopping. It is a time you spend together with your family. I will write a blog report about it, once Eid is over. We look forward to it very much. Suddenly something big is happening in town! No matter what, we will still leave Muscat and head for Salalah to meet one of my Bedu friends from the Al-Mahra tribe, Mussalem Bin Hassan and at the same time check our upcoming route through the country.

Since I arrived to Oman I have received a fair amount of requests from people who´d like to join the Expedition, which is an honor, from some really good names with in exploration and adventure and I have received an uncounted number of emails from people, all young men, if I can help them find sponsors or how to go about. And I think throughout these 24 years of travelling, and 1000s of emails, this is the most common question I have received. So, inspired by a Facebook friend, Alistair Humphreys, I have spent a fair amount of my thoughts today, whilst sitting in long queues of traffic, dodging shoppers crossing the road, thinking about the issue. So here we go,  3 tips and thoughts on the subject!

1. Do you really need it? I know many “wannabes” and first timers want sponsors because they think it looks cool, professional and impressive having a lot of logos on yourself and your gear. Travelling like I do, with cultures as the main issue, one doesn´t want to look like a formula one guy. I can understand that climbers, north and south pole skiers…I mean where meeting people and cultures are less important…and so on want to keep a high profile and market their sponsors, but otherwise there are other ways to market your potential sponsors. I have a feeling that potential sponsors in the West understands this, that it is not good to get over exposure, but in this part of the world, it hasn´t hit home yet.

Two of our main sponsors in Siberia......

So my point is, if you have the funds, it is a better choice. Less work, less stress and you run everything the way you want. However, I want to add, I have always had a great partnership with my sponsors and many of them are very good friends today and they have never, ever, had opinions how I use their brand or expose it. However, I have heard other opinions, especially if you involve broadcasting media. (Check the site at www.siberia.nu and the link to partners to see what sponsors I had on the Siberian trip.) I know that Christian Bodegren, who is trying to pass the Sahara Desert, is funding his expedition by himself. I respect that a lot for a first timer.

And, if you haven´t done a serious Expedition before, do one, and than try for sponsors for the second one. Potential sponsors wants to see a track record of what you have done. So better choice is to work and save money!

2. You really have to figure out, what does a potential sponsor want out of it? What can you offer them, which all the others cannot? For example I have a friend who is in charge of Canons sponsorship department and he gets 300 requests for sponsorship per day. He offers sponsorship to ten causes a year, meaning less than 1% of all who asks and almost all of them are well known already. I don´t want to make it look hopeless, just telling you how hard it is. My only advice is, try a new perspective, if you are not famous.

3. Target only the ones which fit your vision and find ones that you will become a pal with. Some people do anything for money, forgetting that the future will judge you by who you cooperated with. After awhile, if you take anything, your vision gets clouded in being looked upon as purely a moneymaker. Many of them in exploration I am afraid. I personally really enjoy working with sponsors. I think it is because I love dealing with people and almost all of them are very good friends to me today, with whom I socialize. Like the legendary Olle Widell at the former Outside Scandinavia. He believed in me from the beginning and sponsored me through many expeditions. I would never deal with a sponsor if I don´t have a personal relationship with them. So find the ones who fit your vision and it will be a great partnership for both!

By the way, have a look at this! (Yeah, I know, it doesn´t have anything to do with sponsorship!)

Satellite equipment sponsored by Tomas and Tina at Explorers Web on the Siberian expedition, they´re two of my best friends today.

“Yesterday I saw this little ant on my floor and my first thought was to kill it, but than I realized how amazing it was, this little life walking on my floor, with all its legs and body moving forward and I thought, woow, another of his great creations!” Talib said with great joy in his face and continued passionately: “Our prophet said that life is precious and that humankind shouldn´t kill anything. All life has the same value! The prophet Mohammed was fantastic!”

“Oman is mainly Ibadi?” I asked him, my very good friend Tali Omar, during this, one of our many Thursday meetings, when we discuss everything from religion to football.

Talib goes up at 4.30 every morning to go to the mosque an pray....

“I don´t see myself belonging to any specific arm of Islam. I am sunni, shite, ibadi, all. I am a Muslim in all ways. It is simple really, it is just to follow the ten commandments of the Bible. I try to do as good as I can.”

Talib is one of the nicest human beings I have ever met. He has been the big difference in many ways, regarding the success or failure to put the Expedition on it feet and his wisdom is plentiful. And he never talks bad about anyone, doesn´t pass judgement without knowing, he is well read and educated in life, he speaks with a soft voice, always in a non-aggressive way and he is never pushy, but always helpful, very generous and no matter how busy, bogged down with work, he always takes time to listen and help. Lately he has spent hours in his phone trying to help me find my way through the sign-free parts of Muscat. He is a devout Muslim which prays 5 times a day, he listens often to prayers on the radio or TV and he reads a lot on the same subject.

The five pillars of Islam is: Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad; Establishment of the daily prayers; Concern for and almsgiving to the needy; Self-purification through fasting; and The pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able.

“I prefer to read books by Western scholars when it comes to Islam” , he says, “They go deeper, question and are more neutral, which means you get a broader spectrum of Islam.”

“Why do you think Islam is so misunderstood in the West?”

“Well, it has become to politicized. Really from the beginning with the Ummiyads and up until today it is far to often based on political and not spiritual power. And when two Muslim sides are at war, like Iran or Iraq or like in Somalia, they blame each other for not being true believers. I guess, like Christianity, look at the catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland…..” I chip in with the former republic of Yugoslavia, “….they´re still not getting along even though they should be called educated people. Because one problem for Islam is that in many Muslim countries education is poor and if you get a bad Imam preaching in an uneducated area, we have a situation. Therefore, if it is a poor country with big divisions between rich and poor, than people will join the opposition whether they are fanatics or not! Education and a fair government is vital!”

“One thing I realized during my time in Yemen studying Arabic, was that in reality, like the Talibans in Afghanistan”  , I said, “These geezers don´t even speak or understand Arabic, how than can they than properly understand the Quran? They don´t even know what they are reading.”

“True. I haven´t thought about that.”

“What about the issue of women? I get a lot of questions from my readers about Islam and their views on women and then they, the readers, refer to some horrible article written about lashing or stoning woman. And add that some Muslims say that it is written in the Quran that the beating of women is a right.”

“The situation for women is not good. Indeed it is terrible. But that has to do with the old culture in this area, which was strong far before the arrival of Islam, and this ancient culture has unfortunately been applied to Islam. But that is not good, because it is a fact, that The Prophet loved women and he had some very strong women around himself and if people try to read his first sermon where he specifically said that society has to protect women and give them the same rights. I have a daughter myself, she plays football and I will give her every chance in life to choose what she wants to do in her life. And regarding beating woman, in Oman it is written in the law that it is forbidden, but it is still not easy to implement, because if a woman goes to court, she will pay a social prize of being evicted from the community. So we still have some time before it works perfectly.”

All throughout our conversation his mobile has rung, messages has poured in, it is Eid Al-adha, plus that Talib really never takes a day off work. Suddenly somebody very important calls and our time is up and we return in his Porsche to Al Ghubra where I live. He stops half way at a mosque for midday prayers. For me Talib is a role model of how a human being should be.

The shopping for Eid Al-Adha is hysterical right now!

Some of the most imposing mosques have elaborate design, like the Sultans Mosque in Muscat.....