Re: Qur'an Wins Heart of US Professor


Sayid Abu Khamr al-Murtad (Abdul-Khinzeer al-Mushrik) wrote:
> > > I'm leaving the office in about 30 seconds to do
> > >Christmas shopping,
> >
> > This may violate UN protocol. You mean Holiday shopping or Winter
> > shopping, don't you?
>
> Interestingly, there is a controversial balance with the holidays at
> the UN. A few years back the UN finally met Muslim demands to make
> certain Islamic holidays official days off as well (rather than
> voluntary days off). But the UN didn't want to simply add more days
> off, so they had the Muslim holidays replace already existing holidays,
> which upset some people. In 2006 Eid falls three times (i.e. Eid
> al-Adha falls twice, once in January and once again in late December,
> due to the shortness of the Islamic calendar), so there was a
> controversy over which holiday would be dropped to make room for the
> third Eid that takes place this year. There was a big uproar here at
> the UN due to Christians wrongly believing that Christmas would be
> sacrificed (of course that was ridiculous, as it was President's Day
> that will be scrapped, which makes much more sense). But the whole
> debacle showed that many people in the UN consider Christmas rather
> important.
>
> On a side note, since I work with the documents that go to the various
> missions and delegations, I get to benefit around Christmas time from
> the missions giving away gifts to those who prepare the documents for
> them. Several missions gave me bottles of wine or hard liquor in the
> days leading up to Christmas and the New Year, and I would take them
> out with my friends and have a drink. But the two funniest examples
> were as follows: (1) The Arab League gave me a bottle of Vodka. I found
> that to be somewhat ironic, so rather than drink it I'm going to keep
> it on a shelf in my room. (2) The Islamic Conference also donated
> bottles, but of pommegranate juice! And the guy from the Islamic
> Conference who was picking up documents actually said "Merry Christmas
> brother" as he handed me a bottle wrapped in festive paper. :)

To add to humorous stories along these lines, one that I forgot to
mention was the following: a gentleman from the Jordanian mission came
to pick up some documents, and after I finished helping him, he thanked
me and shook my hand. When our hands touched, I suddenly realized there
was a piece of paper between our hands. I was not sure what it was
(e.g. it could have been a cash tip, but it could be something else, as
a close -male!- Indian friend of mine was once propositioned by a high
ranking representative of the Afghan delegation; i.e. the guy said to
my friend "you're a very pretty boy," and then handed him a card with
his phone number on it). Anyway, when the guy walked away, I looked at
the piece of paper. It had Arabic writing which read "khamsatu
danaaneer" and then the English on the other side: five dinars,
complete with a picture of King AbdAllaah bin al-Husayn. It was a tip
after all, though not one I will be spending any time soon.

.

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