Love is in the desert air – if you nurture it

Rasha Elass

• Last Updated: February 14. 2009 6:54PM UAE / February 14. 2009 2:54PM GMT

ABU DHABI // The desert landscape might be harsh, but love can still bloom there, says Rashid al Mansori, a relationship coach. He and his team of a dozen family therapists at Al Farha Academy hope to cut the UAE’s soaring divorce rates by teaching Muslim couples to improve their lives together.

Courses such as Mr al Mansori’s are timely. UN figures show the divorce rate among Emiratis in the UAE leapt by 13 per cent between 2002 and 2004, to 12,974 a year.

His tactics include a Monopoly-style board game about marriage and lessons in the language of love, to avoid what some people call the “Noor Factor” – splits between couples sparked by the hit romantic TV series.

“I personally know of cases where divorce was the result of this soap opera,” said Mr al Mansori.

Noor, a Turkish production, has become a phenomenon in the Gulf since it was dubbed into colloquial Damasfcene Arabic. The couple at the heart of the programme, Noor and her husband Muhannad, constantly refer to each other in endearing terms – even in the worst of times. That has prompted many Arab women to ask their own husbands why they don’t use the language of love “just like in Noor”.

One solution, Mr al Mansori tells couples taking his courses, is for them to learn from the colloquial Arabic of Syria and Lebanon, which lends itself more easily to flowery talk.

“Let’s face it. The only Arabs who do very well with flowery language are in the Levant,” said the “love doctor”, referring to Syria and Lebanon.

“In the Gulf culture, our nature is harsh, due to the harshness of the terrain, the desert and the heat. This harshness is reflected in our language as well.”

Worse, he says, is that some Emirati men feel ashamed to use affectionate language. “It’s as if it’s shameful for a man to call his wife endearing names like ‘batta’ (duck) or ‘hulwa’ (pretty one),” he said.

“When a man starts using flowery language with his wife, people embarrass him. They tell him, ‘What are you saying? You’re a man, don’t talk like that’.”

Another course, for newlyweds, is called the Marriage Driver’s Licence, and teaches that men understand love as action, whereas women understand it as words. Another, entitled Bedroom Art, includes the rights and obligations of husbands and wives.

At the end of the sessions, couples sit a 500-question examination; to pass they must get 350 correct.

Mr al Mansori has also developed a board game called “Game of Love” for married couples to play “after the kids have gone to bed”.

“In the game there are religious references, like one hadith that talks about a man who entered his home and greeted his wife, and they both looked at each other, making eye contact,” he said. “So God, too, looks upon them and He blesses them with mercy.”

Mr al Mansori gives lectures to couples and sometimes holds private sessions for troubled families.

“The differences between men and women go beyond physiology,” he said. “Men and women express love differently. A wife should understand that when the husband performs household duties, that is an expression of love.

“And husbands should know that women want them to be tender, to spoil and flirt with them, using flowery language and compliments.”

All the courses so far have been in Arabic, but courses for Muslims who do not speak Arabic are planned.

At the core of the programme is a reference to the life of the Prophet that encourages couples to gain better understanding of their differences and show more readily their love for each other.

There are many anecdotes of the Prophet’s playfulness with his favourite wife and pupil, Ayesha, sometimes allowing her to win in races and at other times teasing her for not coming first.

He would call her “humaira”, a playful reference to her “humr” cheeks, or red cheeks. He would call her “Ayesh”, also a playful pun on her name that means “alive”.

“Ayesha used to ask the Prophet: ‘How is your love for me?’” said Mr al Mansori.

“And he would answer, ‘Like a knot between two ropes’.”

Marriage in the Quran is also referred to as a knot.

“The knot is the love that keeps a marriage alive,” said Mr al Mansori, who also appears regularly on religious radio shows.

He explains that for women it is important to hear about the knot, the love their husband has for them.

“Women need to hear love,” he said.

Mr al Mansori encourages couples seeking inspiration for romance to read about the family life of the Prophet, and search the Gulf’s rich tradition of romance in poetry. Famous romantic epics in the Arabic poetry tradition hail several Romeo and Juliet-like characters, including the most noted Antar and Abla. He was the son of a slave woman who fell in love with Abla, a Sheikh’s daughter, and set upon a series of chivalrous displays in a battle to prove himself to her father.

What he calls a strong feminine instinct to need to hear love also defines the ideal father-daughter relationship, he believes.

“I come across fathers who complain that their daughters are combative and rebellious, so I explain to them that it is also important for the father to express his love for his daughter in words.

“He should spoil her a little, call her endearing names like ‘my ghazal’ and ‘lovely girl’. Fathers must indulge this instinct in their daughters, because otherwise when she grows up and hears flowery language from any random man, she will instantly fall for him.”

Al Farha Academy [its name means joy] has an office in Dubai but is based in Britain. It operates online Arabic-language marital guidance courses worldwide.

The General Women’s Union is sponsoring premarital classes that help couples to communicate their expectations and develop the skills important to every marriage; and the Marriage Fund, which helps grooms to defray the cost of weddings, also offers lectures on the obligations of married life.

relass@thenational.ae