Women and Islamic Investing

This past weekend, I made a trip to MI where the women at the mosque in Lansing had asked me to come and speak. All arrangements were made by the women for me to speak on Friday night to the entire mosque and then on Saturday night to the women. There was some confusion regarding the seminars, and on Friday night, only the women showed up and then the general seminar got cancelled. There were approximately 30 women present at the seminar and all said they benefited tremendously from it. The seminar is an idea I have had for a while. To model a presentation after the the very successful "Smart Women Finish Rich" but for the Muslim community. This was my first attempt and it went well!!!!

On the point of the confusion, I have come to realize that the point of contact for arranging seminars at mosques must be a man. I have always done this, but this time, since a Muslim woman had approached me regarding the seminar, I thought it was ok for me to use her as the point of contact for the Board. I was mistaken!!! Upon talking to the men at the Lansing mosque about the confusion and the eventual cancellation, I felt they were a little upset that no one had spoken to them directly. They were aware of it, and it was actually approved by the Executive committee, but the advertising and all was haphazard because they were not directly approached.

Saturday July 24, 2004

I gave a seminar at the Ann Arbor masjid to a small group of about 7 people. Referring back to my experience in Chicago, I think the quality of the attendees was excellent. All of them had very good questions and all seemed eager to open accounts after I finished. I gave the presentation on Retirement Planning. I find more and more that as Muslims are getting older, they are moving their investments in accordance with Sharia. This is a quite natural phenomenon, considering that as one gets older, the realization of their own mortality becomes more evident. One of the participants who attended this seminar told me that she and her husband were making their life more sharia compliant and didn't do this while they were younger. They were happy that there were products available that would allow them to do this and were also happy that these products were competitive.

Whenever I travel, I try to sit in an exit row seat because there is more room. I am also one of the first people on the plane since I travel so frequently. As I boarded my return flight, I noticed that I wasn't the first one on the plane. From the front of the plane, I could see that there was an old lady sitting close to the exit row. It wasn't until I got to my seat that I realized that this 80 year old women was sitting next to me. She was eating a burrito which she could barely lift into her mouth. I sat down next to her and began to wonder why the agent would have assigned her this seat. After all the passengers had boarded (it was a full flight), the flight attendant came up to us and gave her usual speech about "do you realize that you are sitting in an exit row? in the event of an emergency, are you aware that you will have to listen to my instructions and be able to open the emergency door" ........ All of us gave our usually nods and I had a big smile on my face which almost turned into laughter. Her was an old lady sitting next to me, who could barely lift up a burrito to eat, and she was nodding that she could open the emergency door in the event of an emergency!!!!! To top it all of, the flight attendant acknowledged her nod and walked away. As the doors shut, and the lead flight attendant made one last walk up and down the aisle, she (thank God) stopped at our row and did a double take at the old woman. "Ma'am, are you ok sitting in this seat?" she asked, the old woman again nodding..... "Hmmm, maybe we should move you for the safety of the other passengers". Damn right, she should be moved!!!!! Can you imagine if there had been an emergency and she had to open the door. Now I am not saying that anyone else, including myself, could remain calm enough to open the door after falling 33,000 feet, but given the choice between a young man or woman and an old man or woman, I'll take my chances with the young!!!!