Valentine's Day, UAE - Feb 13th

Yes, I said Feb 13th!

This year the Prophet Mohammed's (PBUH) birthday is due to fall on Feb 15th. This will mean that there can be no alcohol served or live entertainment from 6pm on Feb 14th.

This of course will screw up many people's Valentine's night plans, especially those who are not especially attractive and rely on alcohol to make sure they have a good night! As a consequence of all this, most of the hotels are pulling forward Valentine's night to Feb 13th so they can offer the usual full package of fun and frolics.

We will have Caroline's daughter, Rochelle, over with her boyfriend that week. We are sparing her the embarrassment of a double date with her mother, but we don't have anything arranged as of yet. It's on my to do list to organise!

Peace Be Upon Him

Tomorrow the Muslim world celebrates the birthday of Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him). Whenever you refer to Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) as a Muslim, or if you are in an Islamic country it is necessary to suffix his name with "Peace Be Upon Him", although this may be abbreviated to "PBUH". Muslims follow the Islamic calendar or Hijri, which is based on the lunar cycle and started at the birth of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) (!). So in the Islamic calendar tomorrow is Rabea Al Awwal 12th, 1430 Hijri.


Today is a Public Holiday. Because a number of religious celebration dates are governed by the lunar cycle there is a "UAE Moon Sighting Committee" who's job it is to check out the moon and confirm when these dates should be. It seems like the dates are always very conveniently added to a weekend break for the public sector workers (where most Emiratis work) - call me a cynic but I'm not sure it has an awful lot to do with the moon as long as it close enough! Well whenever it is I don't really care because I get the day off too - yippee!


So, Happy Birthday Mohammed ...(PBUH)