SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates: Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah and a member of the United Arab Emirates’ Supreme Council, announced Tuesday that a tower for women is being built in Kalba, near the University of Kalba and opposite the city’s existing clock tower.
The design is complete, and work on the foundations is underway.
Speaking on the “Direct Line” program on Sharjah Radio and Television, Sheikh Sultan said the clock tower at the university’s entrance was open to all but was not well suited to men, women and children gathering in one place. The existing tower will serve men, he said, while the new one, at the far end of the university grounds and directly facing the first, will serve women.
The new tower has an attractive design and a sweeping view of the area, he said. It has been placed well away from private homes to protect residents’ privacy. The university lies to the west, and the cooperative society, Kalba Creek and the island lie to the east. A public park and a cemetery are behind it.
The park, which runs up to the cemetery wall, includes a large air-conditioned indoor hall with a range of games. Sheikh Sultan said it is the first park of its kind in Kalba, a gift to the city’s residents, and that the model will be repeated in other areas.
“The objective is to provide women with a space in which they can enjoy their time in complete privacy,” he said.
Sheikh Sultan said new projects bring people great joy, and he recalled the opening ceremony of Al-Islah Al-Qasimia School, which he attended as a first-grade pupil in 1947.
“We’d hear the older folk singing, and we’d be absolutely delighted by it,” he said.
One song stood out, he said. It was written by Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi, then ruler of Sharjah, who gave it to the school’s principal for the students to sing.
For years, Sheikh Sultan said, he could remember only a few lines of the poem and asked school friends and elders about its origin. He later learned it was a reply to an Omani poet. He found the complete 14-line poem only the day before the broadcast, he said.
“I read it several times, and it is quite a piece despite its shortness,” he said. “It is very much rooted in the occasion and full of imagery.”
He said he has spent years trying to trace other poems from his youth, some recited by his late father, without success.
Sheikh Sultan also described a photograph of himself with his first-grade classmates.
“I can see the mats we sat on. They’d stick to us when we stood up,” he said. “You could hear the sound of them as you peeled them off, and the edges would curl.”
On the first day of school, he said, the young pupils crowded at the classroom door, pushed around by older students, as Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr arrived to open the school. They heard a voice singing “O honoured visitor, welcome, welcome!” and later learned it was Sheikh Mohammed, son of Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr.
“There are so many details in those memories that time and the passage of life can’t take away,” Sheikh Sultan said. “Our lives have been full of so many beautiful moments which will always remain in our hearts.”- With inputs from Agencies
