Coordinates	55°21′39″N86°05′20″N
name	al-Hayat
type	Daily newspaper
format	Broadsheet
foundation	1946
price	Varies by countryLess than USD 1.00 throughout the Arab world
owners	Dar al-Hayat
headquarters	London
editor	Ghassan Charbel
issn	0967-5590
website	alhayat.com
circulation	170,000-300,000 (estimated) }}

''Al-Hayat'' ( "Life") is one of the leading daily pan-Arab newspapers, with a circulation estimated over 200,000. It is the newspaper of record for the Arab diaspora and the preferred venue for liberal intellectuals who wish to express themselves to a large public.

Though rather pro-West and pro-Saudi with respect to articles concerning the Arabian peninsula, it is quite open to various opinions concerning other regional questions. ''Al-Hayat'' prints in London, New York, Beirut, Jeddah, Dammam and Riyadh. The newspaper has offices in Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Khartoum, Istanbul, Algeria, Paris, Vienna, London, New York, Moscow, Riyadh, Jeddah, Damam, Makkah, Medina and Washington.

The newspaper "is regarded as by far and away the best and most intensely read Arab newspaper", according to a 1997 article in ''The New York Times''. A 2005 article in the same publication described ''Al-Hayat'' as a "decidedly Arab nationalist paper". The newspaper is distributed in most Arab countries, and most of its editors are from Lebanon, where ''Al-Hayat'' is very popular. It is more critical of the Saudi government than its main rival, ''Asharq Al-Awsat''.

The newspaper's motto is ( "Life is belief and jihad"), a line taken from a poem by Ahmed Shawki that adhering to one's beliefs and expressing one's opinions is as laudable and noble as a religious struggle.

History

Origins

The original ''Al-Hayat'' was founded by Kamel Mrowa, a Lebanese Shi'i Muslim, in Beirut, Lebanon in 1946. (He named his daughter, Hayat Mrowa (now Lady Palumbo), after the newspaper.) In 1966, as Mrowa checked final proofs for the next day's edition, an assassin walked into the Beirut office and shot him to death. Although the assassin's motive was never conclusively determined, investigators linked the shooting to the newspaper's criticism of the Arab nationalist movement. The publication survived 13 bombing attempts before the Lebanese civil war finally forced it to shut down in 1976.

Refounding and New Ownership

''Al-Hayat'' was refounded in 1988 by Jamil Mrowa and Adel Bishtawi, and was bought in 1990 by the Saudi prince Khalid bin Sultan. Owing to the newly relaunched newspaper's majority Christian Lebanese and Christian Palestinian management, critics dubbed ''Al-Hayat'' "a newspaper of minorities in the service of a prince," especially after publishing criticisms by Kurds and Shiites opposed to Saddam Hussein. "Its ownership by Prince Khalid has meant that the paper treads softly when it comes to disquieting news about Saudi Arabia, a notable exception to its independent stand," according to a 1997 ''New York Times'' article.

Al-Hayat in the 1990s

In May 1993, the newspaper scooped every other news organization by breaking the news about the secret Oslo talks between Palestinians and Israelis. ''Al-Hayat'' also initiated a joint news-gathering operation in the mid 1990s with the Saudi-connected Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation.

By 1997, ''Al-Hayat'' shocked its Arab readership by establishing a bureau in Jerusalem. As of that year, the newspaper had a daily circulation of about 200,000 and was staffed by Muslim, Catholic, Maronite, and Druse editors and reporters who formed "a highly professional team", according to a report in ''The New York Times''. The ''Times'' report described the newspaper as a source of "iconoclastic interviews" and "having the most influential cultural pages anywhere in the Arab world, and opening opinion pages to radical reactionary Muslim fundamentalists and virulent anti-religious liberals, pro-Iraqi [under the Saddam Hussein regime) Arab nationalists as well as conservative gulf Arabs.". Edward Said of Columbia University was a frequent contributor. The managing editor, Khirallah Khirallah, "can reach Yasir Arafat on the phone at any time of day or night", according to the ''Times'' article.

In January 1997 at least 14 letter bombs were mailed to the newspaper's headquarters in London and its bureaus in New York, Washington and Riyadh. Two security guards were wounded by one of the bombs as it exploded at the headquarters.

2002 Ban in Saudi Arabia

On October 23, 2002, Saudi censors banned ''Al-Hayat'' because the edition contained an open letter from 67 American intellectuals that defended the War on Terror, and called upon their Saudi counterparts to condemn "militant jihadism" and to further delegitimize the concept by calling such actions un-Islamic. The publication was part of an exchange between American intellectuals—including Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan—and counterparts in the Europe and the Middle East over the moral foundation for the Bush administration's war against terrorism, with the first letter entitled "What We're Fighting For" published in February 2002 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. A group of 153 largely conservative and Wahhabi Saudi scholars had responded in May, in a column entitled "How We Can Coexist," arguing that while Islam does indeed forbid violence against innocent civilians, the root cause of the 11 September attacks was unjust American foreign policy. The American rebuttal, which prompted the one-day Saudi ban of ''Al-Hayat'', insisted that the blame rested squarely upon the governments and societies of the region: "We ask you sincerely to reconsider the tendency . . . to blame everyone but your own leaders and your own society for the problems that your society faces,"

2007 Ban in Saudi Arabia

In late August 2007, the Saudi government banned distribution of ''Al-Hayat'' within the Kingdom for less than a week. The ban was a culmination of weeks of extended tension between the newspaper and the Saudi information ministry, which the paper's staff alleged to have ordered ''Al-Hayat'' to drop columnist Abdul Aziz Suwaid, who had written a number of columns criticizing the government for inefficiencies, including a wave of mysterious deaths among camel populations. In addition to criticism of the agricultural ministry's handling of the camel's death, the paper had also run articles critical of the health ministry after the death of a girl following a medical operation. Other reports attributed the ban to the paper's disclosure that a Saudi extremist had played a key role in an Iraqi al-Qa'ida front group. Although the government and paper both refused to officially comment, a private distribution firm in the kingdom, the National Company of Distribution, told the Associated Press that it had been told not to distribute the paper. The Saudi edition of the newspaper—with a circulation of 200,000 in Saudi Arabia at the time—did not appear on newsstands for at least three days, with an anonymous source in the Riyadh office telling the ''Financial Times'' that the paper had been told it had "crossed a red line."

2011 Reporting on Hamas Decampment from Syria

On 30 April 2011, ''Al-Hayat'' reported that Hamas had taken the decision to leave Syria, citing unnamed Palestinian sources. The article added that—while sources in Gaza reported the refusal of both Jordan and Egypt to host the organization—Qatar had agreed to host its political leadership (though not its military leadership, which the article stated would likely return to Gaza), and that Hamas's political leader Khaled Mashal would be departing Damascus shortly to take up residence in Doha. On 1 May, ''Al-Hayat'' published a short item noting that a member of Hamas's political bureau in Damascus had issued a statement denying any intent to leave Syria, quoted in the article as stating that Hamas "is still operating from Damascus, and what the media said in this regard is completely false."

The New York Times reported on the allegations the following day, citing the reports in ''Al-Hayat'' as evidence of strained relations between Hamas and the Syrian government, as a result of the 2011 Syrian uprising. Anonymous Hamas officials cited pressure from the government to take a clear stance against the protests. While the political leadership again publicly denied any reports of an impending move—telling the ''Times'' “there is nothing to this report in Al Hayat that we are going to Qatar,” and “it is absolutely not true"—a Syrian historian at an Ohio university, citing contact with sources in Damascus, said that the "Hamas leadership was definitely examining its options, looking at other countries in which it might settle."

Current Organization

Currently, ''Al-Hayat'' is organized under the larger umbrella of Dar al-Hayat ( "Publishing House of Life"). Its website www.daralhayat.com hosts the content of three different publications: ''Al-Hayat'' (International Edition), published daily in a 24-page spread; ''Al-Hayat KSA'' (Saudi Edition) published over 48 pages on weekdays and 36 pages on weekends; and a weekly woman's magazine Laha ( "For Her").

Masthead

While Ghassan Charbel holds the position of editor in chief, Jameel Theyabi is the assistant editor in chief of the Saudi Edition, which was launched in 2005, and has increased circulation in Saudi Arabia from 20,000 to almost 200,000. Additionally, Abdullah Iskandar serves as director for editing in Britain, and Zahir Qasibati in Lebanon, and Raja Rasi as director general.

Criticism of Charbel

Outspoken media critic As'ad AbuKhalil who blogs as "The Angry Arab News Service" has labeled Al-Hayat's current editor in chief, Ghassan Charbel, "a mouthpiece of Khalid Bin Sultan," owing to the hyperbolic praise contained in a 2005 eulogy of the then-recently deceased Saudi King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

Bureaus

Although Al-Hayat is headquartered in London—the principal location for its editorial, administrative, distribution, and subscriptions offices—the paper also maintains offices in Paris, Riyadh, Jidda, Dammam, Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus. The three offices in Saudi Arabia reflect the paper's focus on the country as well as the regional division into central (Riyadh), west (Jidda), and eastern (Dammam) editions.

Contents

The international 24-page edition generally contains eight pages of political news (with marked differences from the front page focus of the Saudi edition). Other important sections include the features page, the opinion page, an extensive business section (4 pages), a culture and arts page, and a sports section (2 pages), in addition to other rotating sections on youth, as well as a miscellaneous section. On Sundays, the paper publishes a special supplement called Trends ( literally, "Currents"), which publishes two additional pages of criticism and analysis from a variety of viewpoints.

Prominent Columnists

Editor emeritus Jihad el-Khazen, who was also the founding editor in chief of the rival pan-Arab newspaper ''al-Sharq al-Awsat'', writes a twice weekly column called "Ayoon wa Azan" ( "Eyes and Ears") featured on the back page. Current editor Ghassan Charbel writes occasional opinion pieces on the front page. Their columns along with selections from other regular columnists are routinely translated into English and made available on the paper's website.

Notes

External links

Official website

Official English translations of selected articles

PDF of Saudi print edition (updated daily)

Category:Newspapers published in Saudi Arabia Category:Companies of Saudi Arabia Category:Arabic-language newspapers Category:Arab media Category:Digital newspapers published in the Middle East Category:Newspapers published in the United Kingdom

ar:الحياة (صحيفة) de:Al-Hayat fa:روزنامه الحیات fr:Al-Hayat he:אל-חיאת ja:アル・ハヤト pl:Al-Hajat ru:Аль-Хаят tr:Al Hayat

Coordinates	55°21′39″N86°05′20″N
Name	Wafa Sultan
Birth place	Baniyas, Syria
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	Syrian
Ethnicity	Arab
Citizenship	United States of America
Known for	Criticism of Islam
Education	Medicine (psychiatry)
Alma mater	University of Aleppo
Occupation	Psychiatrist
Title	Doctor
Religion	None (Atheist)
Footnotes	}}

Wafa Sultan (; born June 14, 1958, Baniyas, Syria) is a medical doctor who trained as a psychiatrist in Syria, and an American author and critic of Muslim society and Islam having self-identified as a Muslim but not religious.

Life and career

Sultan was born into a large traditional Muslim family in Baniyas, Syria.

Although Sultan wanted to be a writer, and would have preferred to study Arabic literature, she studied at the Medical faculty at the University of Aleppo due to pressure from her family, stating that she was shocked into secularism by the 1979 atrocities committed by Islamic extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood against innocent Syrians, including her witnessing while she as a medical student the machine-gun assassination of her professor, Yusef al Yusef, an ophthalmologist from the university who was renowned outside Syria. "They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'Allahu Akbar!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god." she worked for four years as a psychiatrist in a hospital.

She, her teacher husband and children immigrated to the United States in 1989, where she moved to Los Angeles, California and became a naturalized citizen. Initially she had to work as a cashier in a gas station and behind the counter in a pizza parlour, but found her treatment in these jobs better than as a medical professional in Syria. From the time of her arrival she begun to contribute articles to Arabic publications in the United States and published three books in Arabic.

Sultan became notable after the September 11, 2001 attacks for her participation in Middle East political debates, with Arabic essays that were circulated widely, and for television appearances on Al Jazeera and CNN in 2005.

On February 21, 2006, she took part in Al Jazeera's weekly 45-minute discussion program ''The Opposite Direction''. She spoke from Los Angeles, arguing with host Faisal al-Qassem and with Ibrahim Al-Khouli, a professor at Al-Azhar University in Cairo (Egypt), about Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory. A six minute composite video of her remarks was subtitled and widely circulated by MEMRI on blogs and through e-mail; ''The New York Times'' estimated that it has been seen at least one million times. In this video she criticised Muslims for treating non-Muslims differently, and for not recognizing the accomplishments of Jewish and other members of non-Muslim society while using their wealth and technology. The video was the most discussed video of all time with over 260,000 comments on the video-sharing website YouTube. The full transcript of the debate which was made public later, also raised many online discussions.

Following her participation in founding of the Former Muslims United on October 13, 2009, Sultan released her first book in English, ''A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam''.

In October 2010 Sultan was called as an expert witness to give testimony at the Geert Wilders trial. There she confirmed that she had met Wilders several times in 2009, had seen his film ''Fitna'', and in general agreed with his views about Islam.

On January 10, 2011, Sultan, opposing Ibrahim Ramey, appeared on the Russian television news show CrossTalk with host Peter Lavelle, where she stated:"I'm not against Muslims, I'm against Islam."

Political views

Sultan describes her thesis as witnessing "a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose". It has brought her telephone threats, but also praise from reformers. Her comments, especially a pointed criticism that "no Jew has blown himself up in a German restaurant", brought her an invitation to Jerusalem by the American Jewish Congress.

Sultan believes that "The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam [is] also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force." In a discussion with Ahmad bin Muhammad, she said: "It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist and killed his humanity".

Recognitions

In 2006 Wafa Sultan was named in ''Time Magazine'' in a list of 100 influential people in the world "whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world." ''Time'' stated that "Sultan's influence flows from her willingness to express openly critical views on Islamic extremism that are widely shared but rarely aired by other Muslims."

Religious sentiment

In the same ''Time'' interview, Sultan described herself as a Muslim who does not adhere to Islam, yet remains associated with the faith through her birth, rather than belief; "I even don't believe in Islam, but I am a Muslim."

Criticism

About the University of Aleppo incident related above, related in an interview with the New York Times, in which Sultan claimed that in 1979, gunmen from the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor before her eyes, Riyad Asfari, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Aleppo, stated in an interview that the assassination took place off campus, and that no one had ever been killed anywhere at the university. Asfari's comment was also supported by Syrian expatriates Adnan Halabi and Ghada Moezzin. Moezzin, who attended the University of Aleppo in 1979, commented "We would’ve known about the killing if it had happened. It would have been big news on campus and I do not recall ever hearing about it." Moezzin added that government security was always present around the university at the time.

Talk of nuclear attack in the Middle East

Wafa Sultan is quoted at a lecture at the Ahavath Torah Synagogue (led by Rabbi Jon Hausman in NYC) as saying: “I believe King Abdullah can change Islam overnight, but you need to put pressure on him to do it, and the same kind of pressure you put on Japan, you might need it” at that moment someone from the audience interjects and asks, “atom bombs?” Wafa Sultan replies, “Yes. At some point the West will need to do it.”

She says: “Islam is infiltrating and you are doing nothing about it.” Someone from the audience then asks Sultan, “How would we stop it from infiltrating?” Sultan replies, “Get involved in politics, you have to know the kind of leaders you are choosing.” The man then says, “If we got involved in politics, what would our platform be, what would we say?” Sultan replies quoting Geert Wilders, “Islam is not religion!” The man interrupts and asks, “what would our platform be, what would A, B and C be?” Sultan replies, “the same you dealt with Nazism. The same way, the same exact way. The same way!” To this she receives a big applause from the audience…”you reversed the Japanese culture, the same, you might need to do it, you might need to do a heavy pressure, I cannot predict the kind of pressure, you understand it, I don’t have to say it.”

References

Book

Sultan, Wafa. ''A God Who Hates'', St. Martin's Press, New York (2009)

External links

Wafa Sultan's articles at ''Al-Hewaar Al-Mutamaddin''

by Wafa Sultan -Who Should We Believe? June 12, 2009 at ''Hudson New York''

Heroes & Pioneers; Wafa Sultan - A Daring Voice Calls For a New Islam TIME 100: The People Who Shape Our World

"Wafa Sultan: Reformist or Opportunist?"

"Dr. Wafa Sultan: A Lost Opportunity"

"Islam's Ann Coulter: The seductive and blinkered belligerence of Wafa Sultan" Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein

Category:1958 births Category:American psychiatrists Category:Syrian psychiatrists Category:Syrian emigrants to the United States Category:American writers Category:Living people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Opposition to Islam in Asia Category:People from Damascus Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:American people of Syrian descent Category:American atheists Category:Syrian writers Category:Syrian Muslims Category:Criticism of Islam

ar:وفاء سلطان az:Vəfa Sultan de:Wafa Sultan es:Wafa Sultan fa:وفا سلطان fr:Wafa Sultan it:Wafa Sultan he:ופא סולטאן nl:Wafa Sultan pl:Wafa Sultan pt:Wafa Sultan ru:Султан, Вафа sv:Wafa Sultan

Mohamed Trabelsi, also known as Bakkaou, (born 7 January 1968) is a retired Tunisian footballer. He played as defender.

Trabelsi played for Océano Club de Kerkennah, as well as for Club Africain and Stade Tunisien.

He also played eight games with the Tunisia national football team, and was a member of the Tunisian squad at the 1994 African Cup of Nations finals in Tunisia.

Wins as player

Arab Champions League

*Winner: 1997

References

Category:Living people Category:1968 births Category:Tunisian footballers Category:1994 African Cup of Nations players

fr:Mohamed Trabelsi