This article was first published by Al-Monitor on March 19, 2013
Although China and India have been new favorable destinations for Arab investors, Southeast Asian countries offer distinctive and profitable investment markets, featuring high demand and relatively low labor costs. In recent years, investments from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have surged.
Raouf Rifai, a doyen of Lebanese and Arab painters, introduced the Darwiche as the point of departure for his art in 2008. Rifai’s Darwiche is a folk character created by the artist and representing the common man (“darwiche” in Arabic means a simple and simple-minded person). Rifai’s common man also encompasses ― through the name the artist chose ― the dervish, or Sufi mystic, thus imbuing a spiritual and physical duality to the character.
here is a need for the United States to adopt an integrated approach, that is, one that encompasses both the Asia-Pacific and Middle East. After all, Asia-Pacific economic growth is heavily dependent on the oil/gas resources of the Middle East and the security and safety of navigation in the maritime space between these regions. For this reason and because of the important bilateral relations the United States has with countries in both the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, it is neither accurate nor prudent for Washington to treat the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East as separate regions, or to rebalance its weight without taking into full account cross-regional considerations.
To be sure, Asia is the home of great civilizations. It is also the continent of rising powers, dynamic economies, and nearly half of the world’s population. For these reasons, it only makes sense that Egypt continues seeking ways to expand its ties with Asian countries. It will take imaginative Egyptian leadership to accomplish this objective and, more broadly, to capitalize on the country’s location and to help unleash its people’s creative energy.
This article was first published by The National Interest on March 12, 2013
Many Muslim women do not choose to forego education, but rather are unable to access this basic right mainly due to a lack of opportunity and socio-political constraints. The sharply contrasting cases of India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are illuminating in this respect. While the Indian case presents a stark picture, the Emirati case presents a bright and more hopeful one.
Even before I left India for Cairo, I had the impression that there was a special relationship between India and Egypt. Indeed, within a few weeks of my arrival in Cairo, I found tangible manifestations that it was indeed so and discovered many more in due course.
Beneath the din and clamor of political clashes and violent street protests, Egypt has been quietly turning to Asia in the form of a flurry of diplomatic activity. In addition to having far-reaching ramifications for Egyptian politics and society, the political ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood has also raised important questions regarding the evolution of Egyptian foreign policy.
The Islamic capital market (ICM) in Indonesia is not a stand-alone capital market which has its own system. Nor is the ICM separated from the country’s capital market system as a whole. In fact, ICM instruments use the same mechanism as the conventional market for their underwriting and trading. Indonesia, with the world’s largest Muslim population, would seem to have great potential to develop ICM, whether in the form of fatwa, regulations¸ products, or other initiatives.
Companies from Asia are beating their European and American rivals in investments in Iraq. Being more prone to risk-taking, they are cashing in on the opportunity to establish businesses that would be profitable in the long-term.
Never before have China’s Middle East policies been less motivated by direct economic interests than by Beijing’s desire to prevent foreign (namely, Western) military intervention and forcing regime change in the region, even for the sake of humanitarian intervention.
This bibliography is not intended to be exhaustive. The 300 entries contained herein were compiled mainly by employing two search tools, namely, Academic Search Premier and Google Scholar. Where complete tables of contents were available, book chapters include page citations.
This piece was first published by The Huffington Post on February 13, 2013.