Three Middle East Events of 2018

While they could be unconnected, the three exceptional news of 2018 collectively express the wind of changes.

Khashoggi | Saudi Arabia

First, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in a fight in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as the Kingdom’s state TV reports, quoting an initial inquiry. Deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri and Saud al-Qahtani, senior aide to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, were sacked over the affair; while detaining more than a dozen, it seemed too ugly act to be believed; how could an intelligence authority be stupid enough to do so, while world cameras and wall ears could inspect and trace all dark actions? This is connected, somehow, to an earlier action almost a year ago, when the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman launched his bold campaign to raise money to fund the objectives of (his) Saudi Vision 2020; by forcing businessmen and princes to pay him.

Mo Salah | Egypt

For the whole 2018 year, the Egyptian soccer player Mohamed Salah has literally become the talk of the world with a list of the countless achievements of this global influencer. In Egypt, for five days a week, every week for three or four years, he was leaving his village and school at 9 am in the morning, to arrive at the training ground at 2pm or 2.30 pm in Cairo. Training was always at 3.30 pm or 4 pm. he would finish training at say 6 pm, then he would go home and arrive at 10 pm or 10.30 pm; this did not teach him football, but built his tough personality to become the Champions League Player of the Week three times, Champions League Goal of the Week x 2, Premier League Player of the Month x 3, PFA Player of the Month x 4, Liverpool’s Player of the Month x 7, Liverpool’s Goal of the Month x 6, Liverpool’s Player of the Season ,PFA Player of the Year, CAF African Footballer of the Year , Football Writer’s Association Footballer of the Year, BBC African Footballer of the Year, Arab Footballer of the Year,  EA Sports Premier League Player of the Season, and the Premier League Golden Boot award.

Law of Gender Equality in Inheritance | Tunisia

For more than 14 centuries, Islamic Sharia used to allow men to inherit double what a woman would receive. In Islam, Ijtihad (reviewing and reinterpretation) is not employed where authentic texts (Qur’an and Hadith) as inheritance laws are detailed in Quran in a clear way. But Essebsi; Tunisia’s president proposed giving women equal inheritance rights in a clear challenge to Islamic law. The Tunisian cabinet- the first among Arab nations- has approved the law of gender equality in inheritance. The controversial law permits women and men to have an equal inheritance, contradicting the Qur’anic verse which states the share of women’s inheritance is half that of men’s. The law will also guarantee a freedom of choice between following the constitution or the Sharia Islamic law.