Jamal Mecklai: Mrs Smith goes to Washington

MARKET MANIAC

The conference has an additional air of excitement since it is expected that Umme-Haani "Bhenjy" Smith will be addressing the gathering.

Mrs Smith is being touted as possibly the first Muslim""and, incidentally, the first woman""President of the United States of America, as she is already the front-runner in the election campaign for 2016.

This state of affairs would have been inconceivable at the start of this century, when America and the most fundamentalist strains of Islam appeared to be locked in mortal combat. Since then, both protagonists have undergone substantial change.

Islam, in particular, is a newer, more "modern" religion. In fact, that entire period beginning some time before the Iranian revolution (in the 1970s) and culminating in the attacks on the World Trade Centres in New York (in 2001) was really about the "reformation" of Islam, akin, in a sense to the reformation of the Catholic Church in the 15th century.

America's role during that period of "making the world free for democracy" was largely a sideshow. 9/11 and the events that followed succeeded in awakening millions of moderate Muslims""and particularly Muslim women""to the traumas within their religion.

They recognised that (at that time) there were 1.4 billion Muslims in the world""more even than the Chinese, who, at the turn of the century, were widely acknowledged as the future of the world.

The Muslims also recognised that, by an odd quirk of fate""is there any such thing?""the vast bulk of what was then the key global resource, oil, was controlled by Muslim countries.

Not incidentally, at that time, the price of oil went through the roof, signaling""at least to those who could think laterally""that something big was going on.

Crude broke through $50 a barrel in October 2004, it hit $60 in November 2004""proximately because of increased terrorist attacks on oil installations in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia after the re-election of George Bush as President of the US""and peaked out near $75 in mid-2005.

Of course, the world economy went into a tizzy. In particular, US growth fell sharply pushing the world very close to a recession. Fortunately, China continued to confound analysts and continued to buy oil, steel, and other raw materials, keeping the world economy afloat. US interest rates went into a second round of decline, pumping money into Asian markets.

The world was poised between an inflationary outburst and growth collapse.

By this time""July 2005 or so, just as oil was peaking""the Saudi government was close to collapse and the Bush administration, in a frantic attempt to salvage itself, sent troops into the holy kingdom. The Saudi royal family was eclipsed in an on-the-ground horrorshow that was the last straw. The move was condemned around the world and Mr Bush's continued blind arrogance drove the euro-zone, Russia, China, and OPEC to an agreement to shift the pricing of oil to euros.

The dollar collapsed and the US economy took a steep drop. The value of US paper fell as Japan, China, India, and other holders of US securities rushed to exit. Equity markets were routed; gold hit $500 an ounce.

It took several years for the smoke to clear. The world economy limped along at near-zero growth for a few years. But, in the meantime, amazing changes were taking place in the Islamic world. More and more Muslims began speaking out about their needs, their desires, their beliefs.

A group of Muslim women from Iran, Pakistan, and India began an organisation called the Organisation of Islamic Unity, which was dedicated to educating Muslim women. The movement snowballed, its constituency broadened to include Muslim men; some clerics joined in as well.

By 2010, it was considered a legitimate voice for a reasonably large segment""nearly 30 per cent""of Islam.

Being modern by nature, the organisation built bridges with international political organisations like the United Nations. By 2012 it had quasi-diplomatic status and had opened liaison offices in all the world's capitals, including, amazingly Washington D.C.

The public face of Islam in America had always been radical, driven by loud voices like Elijah Muhammed and Malcolm X in the 1960s and 1970s. In reality, however, there were many Muslims in America who practised their faith privately and integrated into the great melting pot. In 2001""the year of the horrible clash""there were about 2.8 million Muslims in the United States, around 1 per cent of the population.

By 2015, that number had risen to over 10 million, the vast majority of whom were fully integrated""they were Muslim Americans, not American Muslims.

Umme-Haani Abdulhamid was the daughter of Syrian immigrants; her father ran a chain of baqlava shops in the Midwest. In college at Notre Dame, she met David Smith, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, sports star from Arizona.

David, who was in film school, was on the "Michael Moore" side of a protest rally; Umme-Haani was fervently American. They fell in love, married, and moved to New York.

Umme-Haani, who had specialised in media studies in college, got a job with CNN, through which she met an international group of Muslim women who called themselves the Organisation of Islamic Unity. The rest, as they say, is history.

And if she wins the election next year, America will""once again""be accepted as a respectable member of the world of nations.

(The author is CEO of Mecklai Financial)