Salaam I think this should be revived. Inshallah I will some research and reply to these questions. i anyone else knows, pls do post it.

I noticed in the article that the men are blame-free. Also which is more hated in Islam? Murder or getting a gift with a loved one. I myself abhor the V-day but not so much as to kill someone for it. Subhaanallah..where are we going wrong here?

Salaam Aleykum This is a great thread. Hadhrat Abu Dharr (Radhiallaahu Anhu) reports that Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) came outside one day. It was autumn and the leaves of the trees were falling in large numbers. Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) held a branch and shook it. The leaves began to fall. Thereafter, Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) said, ‘O Abu Dharr,’ I replied, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘When a Muslim offers Salaat for the pleasure of Allah Ta’ala then his sins fall away like how the leaves of this tree fell away.’ (Mutajirur Raabih pg.68; Najdatul Hadeetha) The Most Merciful Allah Ta’ala looks for the smallest excuse to pardon us for our sins. What a chip bargain! Five times a day regular with our Salaat will earn us forgiveness for every little minor sin committed during the entire day. No other business of this temporary world can make such an astonishing turn over. Time flies, life is short, let us make a firm resolution and thereafter make an attempt. Allah Ta’ala will make it easy for us, Aameen. And Allah swt knows best.

Egypt cracks down on Muslim Brotherhood The banned group had been grudgingly tolerated, but regional chaos creates an opportunity for Mubarak's regime. By Megan K. Stack and Noha el Hennawy, Special to The Times February 16, 2007 CAIRO — Egypt's regime is seizing upon a moment of regional chaos and U.S. inattention to crack down aggressively on the country's most popular opposition group and shore up its hold on power, analysts here say. In a bald push against the Muslim Brotherhood, the secular government in recent weeks has arrested hundreds of activists, unveiled new restrictions on political Islam and published a stream of anti-Brotherhood propaganda in the state-run media. More than 80 members were jailed on Thursday alone, Brotherhood officials said. "This is the most brutal campaign against the Brothers since [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak came to power," said Amr Shobaki, a political analyst and Muslim Brotherhood expert at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. With the U.S. distracted by the war in Iraq and increasingly nervous about the regional rise of political Islam, Mubarak's regime appears free to squeeze the Brotherhood, which has long been officially outlawed — though tolerated — as an Islamist opposition force. About 300 Brotherhood members have been imprisoned of late, including at least 100 senior activists. Some of the prisoners' assets were frozen by order of the government. Meanwhile, Egyptian officials and their media mouthpieces have accused the group of creating armed militias and receiving aid from Iran. "The banned Muslim Brotherhood group is dangerous to Egypt's security," Mubarak told an Egyptian newspaper in a recent interview. If the group gets more powerful, "investments will stop and unemployment will increase…. Egypt will be completely isolated from the rest of the world." Brotherhood activists have seen a severe shrinking of leeway since 2005, when they stunned the country by capturing one-fifth of the parliamentary seats in national elections. Back then, U.S. officials said the invasion of Iraq would deliver democracy to the Arab world, and Egyptian officials portrayed the empowerment of Brotherhood members as a necessary step toward democratization. "Democracy cannot progress in Egypt without deciding what to do with them," a ruling party official said at the time. But voting has empowered Islamists across the board: Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian-backed Shiite parties in Iraq, in addition to the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is a major recipient of U.S. aid and a partner in a chilly, often contentious peace with Israel. Mubarak's struggle to appease his allies, hold on to power and tamp down the popular Brotherhood has long been considered a litmus test of Islamist strength across the region. Not its first battle Formed in the 1920s to advocate Islam and oppose secular and Western influence, the Brotherhood has a history of battling Egypt's governments. With its vast network of social services, it is deeply popular among religious Egyptians who regard it as a non-corrupt answer to cronyism and decadence. Mubarak has controlled Egypt for a quarter of a century, permitting virtually no dissent. As the one movement he hasn't been able to squelch, the Brotherhood is his nemesis. At the same time, it allows Mubarak and his inner circle to justify their repressive style of rule by claiming that the only other option is an Islamist state administered by the Brotherhood. The elections played neatly into that argument. Many analysts here believe the Bush administration began to back away nervously from its democracy push when it saw Islamists winning at the polls across the Middle East. Egypt's hand also has been strengthened by the instability in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, conflicts that have forced the United States to call on powerful Sunni allies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan for diplomatic and political backing. Nabil Abdel Fattah, an analyst at the Al Ahram Center, said the war in Iraq "has given more weight to the Egyptian foreign policy, which will give the government leeway in dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood." "The regional and international atmospheres have become convenient," Fattah said. "Attacks against the group will continue in order to send strong messages." A criminal court acquitted several prominent Brotherhood detainees last month, but they were immediately returned to prison while their cases were sent to military court. In the most startling and incendiary charge, the Egyptian government has begun to accuse the Brotherhood of forming and training underground militias. In news stories short on details, officials say they have seized documents proving that the Brotherhood has secret cells dedicated to provoking civil disobedience. The accusations mark a serious departure from the status quo between the regime and the Brotherhood, considered the only opposition group with any serious street popularity. The old understanding was simple: The Brotherhood was officially outlawed but treated with grudging tolerance. The group didn't try to overthrow the government, and in exchange, the regime looked the other way when the movement slipped its leaders into parliament by running them as "independents." Trying new strategies Lately, the mounting pressure seems to have pitched the group into crisis, forcing it to cast about for ways to cement its foothold in the government. Brotherhood leaders have taken pains to tailor their words for an intellectual, even Westernized, audience. Their speeches are carefully moderate, scrupulously tolerant and reverent toward democracy. Seeking to calm fears that it would morph into another Taliban if it gained power, the group has reached out to Egyptian Christians. Seeking to ease concern about women's rights, it fielded a female candidate in last year's elections. (She lost.) And in an improbable move, a Brotherhood leader recently told The Times that the Islamic head scarf was a choice for women, not an obligation. But the group's quest for credibility has been badly undercut by a series of public relations disasters. Brotherhood lawmakers raged in parliament after Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told a female reporter that the head scarf was a sign of "backwardness" and "regression." They demanded that Hosni be replaced by someone who "respects the constitution and the Islamic Sharia," and they called unanimously for a no-confidence vote. Veiled women marched in protest; clerics issued a storm of condemnations. Though the uproar eventually died down, it left feminists and secular-leaning Egyptians more leery than ever about the Brotherhood. The hubbub also fed the perception that Brotherhood lawmakers have neglected the issues of poverty and housing in favor of showy campaigns to advertise their Islamist credentials. Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, a Brotherhood leader, defended the group's record in parliament. Members have done their best to chip away at a repressive government, he said at his office near downtown Cairo. "The problem is, we work under a despotic, corrupt regime that doesn't really care about the members of parliament, that only cares about the ruling elite," Fotouh said. Student demonstration But the woes in parliament were nothing compared with the scandal that erupted at Al Azhar University, the storied seat of Sunni Muslim learning. In December, young men from the Brotherhood's student group dressed in black and staged a military-style parade, complete with martial arts demonstrations, to protest restrictions on student political activities at Al Azhar. The action shocked a nation where public demonstrations have been banned since President Anwar Sadat was shot dead by soldiers in a 1981 military procession, and it fueled fear that the Brotherhood might have secret militias. "This militia show defied the state and contradicted all the peaceful ideas the Muslim Brotherhood talks about," Fattah said. Brotherhood leader Fotouh dismissed the students' spectacle as a meaningless display and said the government had inflated the event's importance to harm the group's reputation. "They were just amusing themselves by putting on this show," he said. "The regime brought the media to cover it to use against the Muslim Brotherhood." Despite the tension, or perhaps in reaction to it, the Brotherhood has announced that members are drawing up a political platform for a party. Although the regime is unlikely to consider giving the group a license, the move is widely seen as an attempt to continue the Brotherhood's push into mainstream politics. "What we're really afraid of is to have a popular explosion in Egypt due to corruption, unemployment and poverty," Fotouh said. "If we don't work on rescuing our nation, this can happen." -------------------------------------------------- megan.stack@latimes.com Stack is a Times staff writer and Hennawy a special correspondent. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brotherhood16feb16,0,34853.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines

Salaam When i went to Somalia (by the pics are on its way) 2 months ago, we went to visit some hospitals (as my family were always family of hospital workers). One of the doctors there mentioned how STDs is quite prevalent in the country. It is so taboo that no one talks about it. We were always a society that diseases such as Tuberculosis that are treatable is swept under the carpet, let alone HIV. Things are getting worse. He also mentioned how confidential and anonymous testing for HIV infection are offered at the clinics in Somaliland but i havent heard similar clinics open in other parts of the country. Anyhow I was discussing this with my dad and him being the practical man that he is, he suggested that awareness of this virus to increase and that condom should be available freely. I was appalled to hear this. This would be like giving permission to screw around. I agree that education is the key but i would have thought that being a conservative society, we would have been safe from this.

Salaam I can see myself living there if only my hubby were persuaded to return living in an Arab country. My friend is there (Dubai) at the moment and she said that the social scene there is non-existence. I think she was hoping to attach herself to an eligible bachelor so that she could live there permenantly. But so far no luck. She is just meeting egotistical no hopers.

/Sexy in a way that only their luver can see./ This had me in stitches

The best remedy to you ailment is to marry another. A new younger model would hit the spot Hunguriyoow!

I always assumed those stories were dead romantic nooh. But why is it bothering you so much that you have to write essays about it? If you want to flex your writing skills, get writing the 1001 stories..I can assure you..we will be impressed with such exceptional skills.

How can i miss this topic? I am not on the ball anymore. ANyhow Hunguri, boowe I am dead against bac madow tuuroow. I am in the opinion of torturing the poor soul when he is under your roof. More fun that way..you see Tell your ladylove that you will get a minyaro hadeey jaqjaqda badiso. Oh dear..my hubby could read this! Maybe anigaa bacdeyda la ii tuuri!

I am 29 and will be for the next 15yrs

Salaam It is consumerism gone mad! Valentine's Day ('singles awareness day') has nothing to do with real love, it's just an excuse to spend more money on a load of tacky rubbish that rots your teeth, is over packaged and is probably destined to end up in some landfill site somewhere. Why do we need a specific day to celebrate love? I was discussing this with my hubby about whether it was a true and warm expression of romantic love or merely a capitalist plot to maximise consumerism? You can guess that he agreed with moi. Valentine's Day, one of the most miserable holidays ever devised by man. People complain about the commercialization of Christmas, and they should, but St. Valentine's Day is worse. It was never corrupted by consumerism, it was invented by it. It is also a day that brings out the bitterness of single people everywhere. Happy Valentine's Day for those who actually enjoy it but to all the more sensible people who realize it is a useless excuse for consumerism - bravo

Yoonis I always wanted to hear all the 1001 stories..Care to tell us one ?

Gabari ma sheegti faceeda.

Our mosques are importing jihad Gina Khan is a British Muslim woman who lives near the men suspected of a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier. She says that it’s time to stop the radicals, and to stop being afraid of themOur mosques are importing jihadMary Ann Sieghart Gina Khan is a very brave woman. Born in Birmingham 38 years ago to Paki-stani parents, she has run away from an arranged marriage, dressed herself in jeans and dared to speak out against the increasing radicalisation of her community. “There are mosques springing up on every street corner,” she says, pointing them out to me as we drive to her tiny house in Birmingham, near the district where nine men were arrested last week on suspicion of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier. Two suspects have since been released without charge. We pass the biggest mosque, Birmingham Central, where Dr Mohammad Naseem preached at the weekend that British Muslims were being treated like Jews under the Nazis and that the Government had “invented the perception” of a terrorist threat. “He is not the voice of Muslims in Birmingham,” says Khan, angrily. “I don’t how he has got himself that position. He does not know what he is talking about, he is 80 years old and needs to retire. If you want someone to be running these establishments, you need a British Asian, modern, liberal man.” Over the past 15 years, she says, there has been an influx of jihadist thinking into her part of Birmingham. Bookshops sell radical literature and the mosques preach separatism and hatred. The Government and the white Establishment have allowed it to happen. And she is outraged about it. “It’s all happening on your doorstep,” she says, “and Britain is still blind to the real threat that is embedded here now. “I truly believe that all these mosques here are importing jihad. The radical teaching is filtering through, and these mosques are not regulated. They are supporting everything that is wrong about Islam. We within the community knew this. People are lying. They are in denial. They knew they were bringing in radicals. “But there are still more English and British people, no matter what, and if they got together and wanted to stamp out this radicalism, they could. I am wasting my time talking to my own people; that is why I am sitting here talking to you, to open your eyes.” Khan is particularly worried about how mosques are brainwashing children and young people: “To me, it is starting to look like a cult.” And her local community certainly seems to be in denial. “After the raid I went to the corner shop here, and they were all saying it was a conspiracy. I turned round and said, ‘No, it is not. Let us be honest’. “They say we’re being victimised. We’re not. The truth is coming out at last, but it’s 20 years too late.” The trouble is, says Khan, that many of the Pakistanis who have come to Birmingham are all too easily swayed. “Most of them are ignorant, uneducated, illiterate people from rural areas. It is very easy for them to be brainwashed, very easy. These are people who have been taught from the beginning that our religion is everything, it is the right way. You are going to Hell simply because you were not born a Muslim.” Khan is far too independent-minded to accept these beliefs wholesale. “I would say to my mum, ‘Are you telling me that Mother Teresa is going to Hell?’ and she didn’t have an answer. My mum was not backward, but everyone is being taught that Islam is going to take over, there are going to be mosques everywhere. This is something jihadists have planned for centuries. They were just looking for our weaknesses, which they have found.” Khan believes that the radicals have coopted concerns about foreign policy to suit their cause. When she began to be worried about what the mosques were teaching her children, she decided instead to ask a female student to instruct them at home. Khanpicks up the story: “She was in the kitchen making the tea and it was after the London bombings. She said, ‘What do you think about what’s happening in Palestine?’ I got angry. I didn’t realise how patriotic I was getting. I turned round and said, ‘I do not care what is happening in Palestine or Israel. I give a damn about what is happening on my doorstep. I have family in London. Look at what is going to happen because of these few people. Look at the people who have died or had limbs amputated. Where were the Muslims then? Why did not anyone care? Because they were mostly white Christians’. And now they’ve turned the bombers’ graves into shrines! They’re just killers.” Khan says she would be delighted if her son joined the British Army or the police. “I say to him, ‘You have these options, you can go into the army and police. You are British, do not listen to anybody else’. I had too much rubbish fed in me that I would be too Westernised. I was told to keep my distance from you because I am a Muslim. It is still really hard to explain to you how you are conditioned. From a young age those thoughts are put in your head: ‘I am a Muslim. I do not mix with those people’. I would honestly say that we are more racist and more prejudiced than the English.” Yet she feels utterly British herself, and senses no conflict between her race, her religion and her nationality. “I am definitely British. I have a British passport. I love this country. When I went to Pakistan I missed my baked beans. It was as simple as that for me. I went in the 1980s and found that there was more rock music, head-bangers, modern kids there than what was happening here. I came back and said to my mum, ‘What have you been doing to me in this country?’ ” What has been done to her — and so many other Muslim women — is what incenses Khan most, and has emboldened her tospeak out. Muslim society, she says, is based on male domination and the oppression of women. The mosques are run entirely by men, the Sharia councils are run by men, the “voice” of the Muslim community is always male. And it is women who suffer as a result. Three issues in particular enrage her: forced or arranged marriages for teenage girls, polygamy and the veil. Khan herself was pressurised into marriage at the age of 16 by her father, against her mother’s wish-es. “I was manipulated by my dad’s side of the family into a teen marriage — you know, you are a passport for someone from Pakistan. My mum wanted me to study and make something of my life because she knew what this country had to offer.” Khan married and became pregnant, but after her baby died she says that she suffered terrible postnatal depression and left the marriage. Her family disowned her, as did the Muslim community. “Where is the support in the community for women?” she asks. “Where is it? It is not here. The best thing you can do is go to the social services.” She is full of praise for the instruments of the British state: social services, the police, job centres. If she were prime minister, she says, the first thing she would do is ban teen marriages. “They are still being pulled out of the local girls school here and taken back home, aged 16 or 17, not allowed to get an education. These girls are so young, they can be manipulated by their family’s culture and religion. They don’t have a chance. To wait until they are 25 or so would make more sense.” The mosques, she says, collude in these marriages, as they do in the informal polygamy that she claims is rife in Muslim communities. “It is still very, very common here, polygamy. This is Pakistan I have just brought you back into,” she says, gesturing at the streets of terraced and semidetached houses. “I know enough stories from women who have come out from abroad, settled with their husbands in arranged marriages and then their husbands have gone back to Pakistan to marry someone else and work out a legal way to get them in the country. In 21st-century Britain the men in the mosques are saying that polygamy is OK, when it does nothing but increase depression in women. No woman in her right mind can share a man. I defy any woman to say she can.”As a result, the first wives get desperately depressed. “I am not exaggerating this. There is a majority of mothers with depression. Fathers commit polygamy; any child you ask tells you it is an unhappy and sad situation to be in. It is damaging to society. It should not be happening in 21st-century Britain. They need people to stop it happening.” But the mullahs are implicitly condoning both forced marriages and polygamy. “They do not question or do anything about the fact that there are two people who do not want to get married. They are no good with these issues because their answer will be, ‘Yes, he is a man, he can have two wives. Yes, you should listen to your parents and marry the person they have chosen’.” So, although polygamy is illegal in Britain, it is still, says, Khan, being practised with a Muslim seal of approval. The “marriages”, after all, are being sanctioned in the mosques. “My mum would turn in her grave if she knew Sharia was here. This is England, how can this be happening, how in this country? People in Pakistan are fighting for it not to happen there.”Khan is also vociferous on the subject of the veil, which is not, she says, a religious requirement: “It’s a 7th-century garment that should not be in this country.” In places like Pakistan, where there is little protection by the police from sexual harassment, she can see the point of it, but not here. “It hurts me,” she explains. “This was once a nice, mixed area. It hurts me that people are on the streets and women are afraid to walk around. No one is talking to each other, white women on one side, veiled women on the other, walking around. They are ignoring me too. I do not know them and I cannot say hello to them either.” As for the woman who was recently photographed in a burka, sticking two fingers upto the photographer, “To me, I felt she did that to me. To me it was a sign of the real thing which you don’t see. They are not all pious and vulnerable and dignified under that garment. If she was, she would not have done that.” Khan often dresses in Western clothes, but not immodestly. Her sleeves are long, and she wears jeans, not a skirt. But she resents being judged by men and more fundamentalist women for choosing to do so. “On one side you have liberal Muslims who do their own thing and on the other, you have the fundamentalists and they are looking down at you. That’s the worst thing, they look down at you because you do not want to be like them. You get grass thrown inyour face, you cannot be a good person unless you are reading the Koran, unless your children are and you are living as an Asian woman should.” Having banned teen marriages and the veil, cracked down on polygamy and ensured women’s representation in mosques, Khan’s next priority as prime minister would be to get rid of faith schools and teach Britishness more effectively. Although her children are taught well at an excellent Catholic school, she fears that Muslim schools exacerbate separatism. “Britishness should be compulsory in schools, taught by English teachers. And we should let kids know how valuable their British passports are around the world.” Khan would love to start a movement of like-minded people, who are grateful for what Britain has given them. “I am trying to get together people, whether Christian, white, black, Turkish. Whoever you are, we have one thing in common: we care about Britain, we care about our country. Whoeveryou are, we want this country to be a safe place. We want to live here, we know we have the best place. “Compared with Third World countries, compared with every Muslim country, we Muslims are a lot safer here, I know that still. I would not want to leave and move to Pakistan or anywhere on my own as a woman with a grown daughter. I know that now, though it may have taken me a lifetime to realise it. I am so lucky to have been born here. “We are women, we are treated equally here. If I am raped or sexually abused, the cruellest things that can happen to a woman and leave a residue on your life, this is a country that supports you. I do not have to hide. They are going to help me, give me counselling. What are they going to do in a Muslim country? Stone me. I need four witnesses. They are going to ostracise me, as if I am dirty.” But still, within the British Muslim community, women are not equal. “We are just treated as second-best. It has always been like that. It does not matter whether you are from a village and backward or from a cultured Asian family — the mentality across the board is the same. “You are fighting this mentality all your life, so it is hard to be who you are. You can either be miserable, as I was for 34 years, or you can say, ‘You know what? I am ahuman being, God gave me a brain equal to the brain he has given you and I am not going to bend over and pray behind you just because you are a man’. Nobody can change that about me because I totally believe that. “Muslim women aren’t suppose to make waves. I didn’t even hear my own screams and tears for 34 years. I have now stepped back and decided to understand and challenge my religion.” So Khan wants like-minded women (and men) to join her. “We need to get together. We need mothers getting together. You know what? It is one thing to sit and talk about it and be angry about it; it is another thing if they play psychological games. We can show how mentally strong we are, we women, we can do it, mothers can. “Let us have a stronger voice. Let us start with the real problems and say, ‘Whether you like it or not, this is what we demand’. We could start with all the things that should have been done a long time ago. I would start by ending the teen marriages.“A whole generation of us have been messed up by these arranged marriages. Women like me lived in depression for 30, 40 years. We do not want to be depressed any more. We want to have a strong voice.” But it is a very brave course to embark upon. Already Khan has had bricks through her car window for speaking out locally about domestic violence and sexual abuse, issues that are taboo in the Muslim community. She is determined, though, to stand strong. “It has been a constant mental battle for me all my life until I decided I am who I am, I am not afraid. I have been living in this community, but lots of thing I say people will not like. “I fear no one. I fear God punishing me for never revealing the truth. Women like me usually jump in front of a running train. I was close once, but I’ll be damned if I let another jerk put the fear back in me again. I have freedom of speech, too. “I am not going to live in fear. I have been told not to say too much. I have been told to be careful what you say, there are people, men, out there who won’t like it.” But there are thousands, millions perhaps, who will. They will cheer for Gina Khan, admire her courage and pray that she remains safe. “The bottom line for my agenda is to eradicate the radicals,” she declares. “We need to say, ‘Wake up, you have to understand you are not being taught the right thing’.” Let’s just hope they listen. ginakhanmail@googlemail.com Have your say http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article1354063.ece

Salaam Has anyone felt right at home after they returned to Somalia? There were days that i felt i was amongst my people and there were days that the people there made me feel a foriegner. It is like that those who were born in the West (or Arab regions) or brought up here a new breed with no country to call home.

That must have been the nomad diet. It can be all the rage in the West i think if we say "eat the left-overs of your hubby and your kids". You are lucky if there is any food left in the digisiga.

^^ Pujaa I can safely say, hand on my heart that i never put anything on my face, not even a make up. Eedadey baa wax ii qastey when i was getting married..it was disgusting. Boorbiro waa talco powder.

^^ Allu Akbar..waa waxa ayeeyadey dhihi jirtey. Also another thing i found quite ridiculous was cunida haraaga cuntada ka soo harta nimanka.

I find boorbiro does a wicked job

Well..you wouldnt tell someone you dont trust that you are home alone..would ya?? It is well known fact that majority of rape crimes are committed by someone you know. So Even if you know the person, better to expect the worst and not to put yourself in vulnerbale position..that why they call me little Miss Sunshine It always helps to learn Self-defence moves. I am thinking of starting "a man-bashing thread" ala CC. My topic would be "Why would men always say that they need to pick up something from their home when they are taking you somewhere" Oh..the horror stories i hear when the girl is so naive!

^^ I think he meant..asking for shaaheeda mac iney ku siiso. On a serious note, No means NO..incase anyone is wondering.

Cadde waa iska jiroole nuune. U ducay odeyga. I am really against this venture. I would have preferred for the TFG to start the ball rolling when things settle and start functioning with all factions onside. Even the revenues from this venture isnt distributed fairly. We all think we had problems, but the day oil and macdan is found, that is the day aan eedi doono.

When are you going Jeneraale to somalia in order to be appointed for your well-deserved, hard-earned position in the TFG? After all...with all your propoganda, you gotta earn something for your efforts I might go there too.

I think Morroco, Saidia in particular is quite popular spot for investors. I am looking into it at the moment. Many people are looking for countries close to UK, year round season, sandy beaches, real luxury (there are new governemnt backed resorts), resorts with multiple on site golf courses and resorts with vast marinas. And it is whole lot cheaper than Dubai/Sharjah. Check these websites for more info: www.lejardindefleur.com www.oasismorocco.com Although i have heard that Ras al Khaimah is the new hotspot in the UAE as it's just taking off. Not sure about this..Perhaps Northern can shed some lights on this. Not sure if i would invest in Bulgaria or the other counties you mentioned. But a cousin of mine was investing in Croatia a while back.