جلسة مع ملحد!.. لمن أركع وأسجد؟

بقلم: عبدالرحمن يوسف

نشر المقال في جريدة الشرق في تاريخ 24.11.2010

 

أين هو هذا الإله الذي يطالبني بكل هذا الخضوع؟
إذا كان موجوداً وله كل الصفات الكاملة والأسماء الحسنى فلماذا يرضى بكل هذا الظلم والقهر في الدنيا؟
إذا كان يطالبنا بالإيمان، فلماذا خلق الكفر؟
إذا كان ربا لكل الناس، فلماذا يقرب من يؤمن به، ويقصي من يكفر به؟
هكذا قال صديقي الملحد في بداية سهرتنا العاصفة!

Road Trip: Al-Hasa

By: Bint Khalid

In memory of Al-Hasa, missed you.

Note. The travelogue below is strictly a personal and a completely subjective view point of Al-Hasa.

Note 2. Beware reading-haters, the length is not for the faint hearted.

I love road trips, and Al-Hasa is a city that we usually pass, in passing. We have probably come by this place ten times and not once taken a decent street tour. To be fair, we do always get lost trying to find the exit heading back to Salwa, so we kind of, indirectly, cruise the town (mostly straining to check signs and ask for directions), but we almost, just about, distractedly, get a sketchy idea of what the place is like. 

Najar!

By: Bint Khalid

For Fatima-Fazeena

 

“Najar!” She shrieked at me, “Hada najar!”.

“What is ‘najar’?” I naively asked our house keeper.

“Enti mafi ma’loom najar?!!”, she said again in her broken Arabic, with her head to one side, lifting her left eyebrow and glaring at me through her left eye. I was unsettled. “What drama is this now?” I wondered?

Forks in the Road

By: Bint Khalid

To loyal readers. The following is based on true events.

 

World War Two, and the world is unhinged. The abhorred senses of fear and uncertainty bask in the air; battles between mighty nations and superpowers ensue. Here is a war, and who knows what the new world will look like? Or who will emerge conqueror on the other side? In the turmoil, the innocent are dropping like dead leaves, some by bullet and others starvation. One wonders which is worse.

In Qatar, with a world in catastrophe, the contract with the Anglo-Persian Company to excavate oil is immobilized. Travel and trade are restricted. The largely bedouin community are unsure of what is happening with limited means of communication.