Dubai...day 6

On Tuesday I started the day at the Jumeirah Grand Mosque for their "Open Doors, Open Minds...Creating Ambassadors of Peace" tour. It was excellent and I highly reccomend it. I was very surprised to see how similar Islam and Christianity are. Islam religion is extremely tolerant and peaceful with other religions, some of the more interesting things I learned:

- Once a Mosque, Church, or Synagogue has been built it is considered a House of God and cannot ever be moved or torn down, no matter what development is taking place around it.

- When Muslims say the name Muhammad the follow it with "peace be upon him" - they do the same when they say Jesus or any of the Prophets.

- They believe in much of the Bible (i.e. Adam and Eve) but they believe Jesus was prophet, not the Son of God.

- The 5 pilars of Islam are:

1. Profession of Faith (there is one God and Muhammad was His prophet

2. Ritual Prayer (they pray 5 times a day, we were explained what they are saying and what the different movements mean)

3. Alms giving (2.5% of their earnings are given to those in need)

4. Fasting during Ramadan

5. Pilgramage to Mecca once in their lives

The women in this region typically wear black simply because they can use really thin black cloth and it will still be opaque wheras if they wore white they would still need to cover up with more cloths underneath. Women do not have to wear the "coats" or burkahs, except in the mosques, it is purely an individual choice. Some women in the Emirates region wear mask type things, this historically was done both a form of "sunglasses" in the desert and they also put a special clay underneath that gives them a daily facial.

I absolutely loved the Mosque tour, it was incredibly intestesting and helped clear up a lot of the misunderstandings I had. Please visit the Center for Cultural Understanding for more information, it is really well done.To get around the Dubai Creek area you take Abras...each ride is 1dirham (aobut 30cents) and they function essentially like a metro system...though a little more chaotic!

Souqs are market places, there a special souqs for different goods. First I went to the Textile Souq...The Gold Souq...

The Spice Souq...my favorite, all the great smells and spices of every color.

About a month ago I went to a lecture by our Legal group regarding the US Export laws and learned that basicaly the US and "US persons" (if a Dane is in the USA, he is a US Person) can have zero interaction with Iran. Hope that Josh and I aren't breaking any laws...

Despite the fact that we had ordered the platter for 3 instead of 4, Cesar was still a little nervous about the quantity of food...

After dinner we went for a long walk on the beach and checked out the ever-growing skyline of Dubai.