DUBAI // Going without cigarettes during Ramadan is harder than giving up food or water, according to Shabir, a 43-year-old taxi driver from Pakistan. He and other smokers are calling it quits from dawn to dusk during the holy month.
While the ban on smoking in public places will deter nicotine addicts from lighting up during the day, most said they plan to resume the habit as soon as the sun goes down. According to Dr Omer al Saleh, a fiqeh studies professor at Sharjah College of Sharia and Islamic Studies, "The Sharia forbids anything that can be detrimental and orders its avoidance. There can be no doubt that smoking is considered part of that."
"It's hard, but what can you do?" said Prabhat Thapa, 25, from Nepal, a pack of Marlboros tucked into his chest pocket at midday. "We have to respect the religion of this country." Mr Thapa smokes a pack a day, but said he will not try to sneak in a single cigarette before the end of the fasting period. Marvin Ore, 26, from the Philippines, said he would stop taking his usual cigarette after lunch to avoid trouble. "I'm afraid my boss will catch me," he said. "It's only one month."
Some smokers will not have to change their habits at all. Smoking is permitted throughout the Al Quoz warehouse office where Natalie Antliff, an 18-year-old from Britain, works as an interior designer. She smokes 20 cigarettes a day. "It's all western people," she explained. During the weekends, she said, "I'll stick to where I'm safe to light up and probably spend more time at home." Amir Hussain, a 39-year-old retail manager from Britain, said his office provides a room for smokers year-round - partly to prevent employees from littering the entranceway, where they used to smoke, with cigarette butts.
George, 34, from Lebanon, said he will go through his usual two packs a day in a cafe near his workplace that allows it. He may smoke even more during Ramadan, he said - as many as three or four packs a day - because he can no longer take his usual coffee breaks. Lighting up is permitted as soon as the daily fast ends, of course. Many people prepare by buying their nicotine right before sunset, said Kalyan Paul, the store manager at Smoker's Centre in the Mall of the Emirates.
Instead of popping in throughout the day as they do most of the year, he said, customers tend to arrive in a rush in the late afternoon. They stock up on Cuban cigars, Marlboro cigarettes and grape-flavored shisha tobacco. The water pipe is popular during Ramadan as a social activity for the iftar gatherings. "It's lighter [than cigarettes]," said Aziza Zaylachi, a 23-year-old flight attendant from Morocco, who left the shop around 4pm with mint-flavored shisha tobacco in hand for later that night.
The water pipe can prove an obstacle for smokers who are trying to use the month to quit. Omar, a 32-year-old Emirati working in real estate, has tried giving up his half-pack-a-day habit before. He said during Ramadan this year he plans to try quitting again. But he will smoke shisha for several hours each night with his friends. "And shisha is 10 times worse than cigarettes," he said. "If a person breaks his fast by smoking, he cannot benefit from his fasting," said Dr al Saleh.
"It is your willpower and strength that enables you to not only reduce smoking, but also quit completely." His advice? "Use the month of fasting to strengthen your willpower to get rid of this bad habit, which both Muslims and non-Muslims avoid." chuang@thenational.ae
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The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Ibrahim's play list
Completed an electrical diploma at the Adnoc Technical Institute
Works as a public relations officer with Adnoc
Apart from the piano, he plays the accordion, oud and guitar
His favourite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach
Also enjoys listening to Mozart
Likes all genres of music including Arabic music and jazz
Enjoys rock groups Scorpions and Metallica
Other musicians he likes are Syrian-American pianist Malek Jandali and Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou Khalil
RESULTS
Cagliari 5-2 Fiorentina
Udinese 0-0 SPAL
Sampdoria 0-0 Atalanta
Lazio 4-2 Lecce
Parma 2-0 Roma
Juventus 1-0 AC Milan
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3/5
The cost of Covid testing around the world
Egypt
Dh514 for citizens; Dh865 for tourists
Information can be found through VFS Global.
Jordan
Dh212
Centres include the Speciality Hospital, which now offers drive-through testing.
Cambodia
Dh478
Travel tests are managed by the Ministry of Health and National Institute of Public Health.
Zanzibar
AED 295
Zanzibar Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, located within the Lumumba Secondary School compound.
Abu Dhabi
Dh85
Abu Dhabi’s Seha has test centres throughout the UAE.
UK
From Dh400
Heathrow Airport now offers drive through and clinic-based testing, starting from Dh400 and up to Dh500 for the PCR test.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
