Four women from different corners of the world, imprisoned in Dubai for various crimes, found a new sense of purpose and faith in Islam ahead of Ramadan. Each of them shared their deeply personal journey with The National. Journeys shaped by hardship, spiritual discovery and an unexpected sense of community behind the prison walls at the Dubai Police Correctional Establishment in Al Awir.
Their paths to incarceration were different, yet their journeys to Islam have a common thread, as all were drawn to the faith through the kindness, resilience and compassion of the Muslim women they had met in confinement.
Last May, Greta, 25, was arrested at Dubai Airport while carrying eight kilograms of cocaine. The Brazilian had been convinced by a childhood friend to smuggle the drugs into the UAE in exchange for Dh19,000 ($5,175), money she desperately needed to cover the last two years of her physiotherapy degree.
“I was terrified,” she told The National. “Not just because I was arrested, but because everything around me was unfamiliar. I didn’t speak English and for the first time I saw so many women covered in Islamic dress. It was overwhelming.”
As she awaited sentencing, Greta was astonished by the kindness of the Muslim inmates and prison officers. “They were the ones who comforted me the most. They told me God never forgets anyone.”
Curious about the faith that fostered such kindness, she began attending Islamic lectures in prison. Nearly four months ago, she was looking for a Quran in her language and a police officer played a recording of the Quran in Arabic for her instead.
“I don’t know how to explain it but when I heard it I felt a deep connection with God,” she said. "There was no fear, no heaviness in my heart, just peace. That’s when I decided to embrace Islam.”
Now Greta is preparing for her first Ramadan. “I learnt about fasting from the women around me. They told me how it cleanses not just the body but also the soul.”
Salvation through faith
Aadhya’s journey was one of inner turmoil, addiction and self-destruction. Before her arrest last April, she had struggled with substance abuse for years, prioritising drugs over everything – including her six-year-old daughter. “I didn’t care about anything except getting high,” the 25-year-old told The National.
Her mother, who works in the UAE as a domestic helper, arranged for her to work in a supermarket in the Emirates but Aadhya was arrested at the airport for carrying drugs before she could start the job.
Aadhya, from India, said she had grown up believing that Muslims were to be avoided. “I was told not to talk to them, not to sit with them, not to eat with them. So, in my mind Islam was something negative.”
While in temporary detention, she had nothing to do and started reading books in her native Malayalam and it was then that she picked up on Islamic teachings. “At first, I read to pass the time but then I started wondering 'why does this religion focus so much on kindness, charity and self-improvement?' It was so different from what I had been told.”
After nine months, she was transferred to the central prison, where she met Muslim women who answered her questions. “I attended lectures, listened and observed. The more I learnt, the more I wanted to be part of it.”
She embraced Islam last May, one month after being sentenced to 25 years in prison. “I called my mother and told her. She said, ‘if you are sure, then maybe Islam will be better for you, especially with your addiction'. She was right.”
For Aadhya, Islam was not only a new belief system, it was her salvation. “Addiction was my prison before I entered this one. But in Islam, I realised that drugs are not just a crime punishable by law; it's a sin because they destroy you and those around you. That changed my perspective completely.”
The first few months of withdrawal were brutal. “I was aggressive, I fought with the police, with other inmates. My body would shake from withdrawal. But the more I read, the more I stopped focusing on the pain. Now, I am clean and I feel free.”
And she regards this holy month as a second chance at life. “Ramadan will be my golden opportunity to reflect on who I was, who I am now and who I want to become,” she said. “Before I was just surviving but now I am living.”
Chance of fresh start
Bidemi, 39, from Nigeria, was last year sentenced to 10 years in jail for drug-related charges, after spending two years in detention. Despite the difficult circumstances, Bidemi’s life took an unexpected turn five months ago when she embraced Islam.
“I didn’t know anything about Islam,“ she said. "One day, I was walking past the prison mosque and heard the call to prayer. I don’t know why but I felt an overwhelming rush of emotions, and I started crying.”
Though she initially had no intention of converting, she was fascinated by how Muslim women prayed. “I asked one of the Muslim inmates to teach me how to pray, even though at the time I wasn’t thinking of becoming Muslim,” she said. “Then I started reading about Ramadan and how it’s a month of self-improvement, kindness and charity. The more I read, the closer I felt to Islam. Eventually, I decided to convert.”
Her biggest surprise came right after her conversion. “I had prayed, asking God to let me leave this place and see my daughter again,” she said. A few days later she received Dh5,000 and, shortly after that, she was granted a pardon. She is now preparing to travel back to Nigeria.
Source of hope
Her fellow inmate Shannon, 42, from South Africa, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug-related charges in 2023. She was pregnant at the time of her arrest and her sentencing was delayed until after she had given birth to her daughter, Angel, in November of that year.
“The moment I heard my sentence, I completely broke down,” she said. “I was filled with fear, sorrow, anxiety and exhaustion, mostly for my daughter.” After returning to her cell, it was the Muslim prisoners who consoled her. “They hugged me, comforted me and spoke with such kindness and love that I started listening to them more. I became curious about their faith, about Islam, and how they believed God could change everything.”
Gradually, Shannon found solace in the teachings of Islam and converted last February. Since then, she has seen what she describes as miracles unfolding.
“Before Islam, everything was dark, including my sentence, my financial struggles, my loneliness,” she said. “But things started to change. The prison gave me money, donors sent gifts for my daughter, then came the news that changed my world – I was granted a pardon.”
*Names have been changed for privacy
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Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
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Started: 2016
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The struggle is on for active managers
David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
