Perceptions Arabs Hold about their Own Language
Panorama
Migration of Bar-tailed Godwits Wintering at Barr Al Hikman
Mind Over Matter
SQU Hosts Humanities Research Centres Conference
News Update
High Rates
of Antenatal
Depression
Department of Public
Relations and Information
Sultan Qaboos University
Issue 338
View Point
Food for Thought
SQU was awarded the WTO Chair programme in 2014 along with other six
universities in a highly competitive process. The WTO chairs programme aims
to enhance knowledge and understanding of the multilateral trading system
among academics and students in developing countries through teaching, research and outreach activities. The research component of the chair at SQU focuses on the issue of food security in Oman and the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA) region and how it can be enhanced through WTO multilateral
trading system.
Mohamed Salem Al Ghailani
Editorial Supervision
Santhosh Muthalath
Senior Editor
Sara Al Gheilani
Nasebah Al Muharrami
Translation
Ahlam Al Wahaibi
Design & Layout
Photography Dept., CET
Photography
Salim Al Sudairi
Circulation
SQU-info
Of late, the WTO Chair at SQU hosted the Second MENA Trade Workshop
“Trade, WTO and Food Security” in March 2016. The two-day workshop discussed the linkage between trade, WTO and food security as well as other trade
related and food security issues. At the event, academicians and practitioners
specialised in international trade and food security from the region presented
their findings and discussed food security in light of the challenges presented by
limiting natural resources and international market instability.
Food security has become more than ever before a worldwide concern particularly in the MENA region. Food security is mentioned in the preamble of the
WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) as a non-trade concern that should be
given consideration in trade negotiations along with protecting the environment
and the possible negative effects of the implementation of the agreement on the
net food-importing developing countries. However, during the last food crises,
global food prices spiked in unprecedented way and world food markets were
disrupted in such a way that many countries, scholars, and development institutions questioned the reliance on trade and world markets to solve developing
countries food security issues. The workshop at SQU addressed these issues.
In addition to price variability, climate change is creating new challenges to the
future of food security in the region. Agriculture in the MENA region is considered one that will be mostly affected by climate change. Year to year localized
production variability is expected to increase and with potentially negative impacts on the food security of local communities. Trade, as it connects “the land
of the plenty to the land of the few”, thereby increasing food availability, could
contribute to food security solutions but more innovative mitigation and adaptation policies are needed to attenuate the negative effects of climate change.
@SQU-info
90199997
Horizon invites contributions from SQU members of staff and faculty. Contributions in the form of
articles, news, travelogues, stories of unique and interesting experiences, encounters, etc., are welcome. Contributions may be edited for the sake of clarity and length. Please send your contributions
to horizon@squ.edu.om preferably, as MSWord attachments. Authors will be suitably credited.
The views and opinions expressed in the articles published in this newsletter are those of the authors
and are not to be construed as the official views of the publication. Horizon is published three times a
month by the Department of Public Relations and Information, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 50,
P.C. 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
Phone: +968 24141045
E-mail: horizon@squ.edu.om
20 April 2016
P2
Fax: +968 24413 391
Website: www.squ.edu.om
News Update
SQU Hosts Humanities
Research Centres Conference
H.E. Dr. Abdul Mon’em bin Mansour Al Hassani, Minister of Information opened the conference on “Humanities Research Centres in the Arab
World: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects for Cooperation”. The
two-day conference was organized by the Humanities Research Centre at
SQU. The Minister of Information said that the conference comes at the
level of Arab countries at this stage because there is a return to the humanitarian sciences in general after productive sciences were prevailing.
”Therefore, it has to be a big comeback in scientific studies around the
world and in the Arab world in general due to the importance of humanities and the importance of the human and social system along with the
productive applied sciences”.
The conference discussed the current situation of the humanities research
centres in the Arab world and highlight their interests, regional and international orientations. The conference served as a platform to get humanities research centres together and to recognize the important developments in the humanities research in order to exchange their knowledge
and expertise. It enabled researchers, academics and other professionals
in this area to benefit from the experiences of each other in the research
areas that some are highly respected in the Arab world. The conference
discussed the roles and functions of the humanities research centres in the
Arab world in the current period, and to develop policies that will lift up
the scientific research in the field of humanities at the Arab level.
SQU, Free University of
Berlin to Boost Ties
H.E. Dr Ali bin Saud Al Bemani, the Vice-Chancellor of SQU, received
a delegation from Free University of Berlin recently. The meeting was
attended by Sayyidah Dr. Muna bint Fahd Al Said, SQU Assistant ViceChancellor for International Cooperation and H.E. Hans-Christian V
Reibnitz, German Ambassador to the Sultanate. The two sides explored
means of enhancing cooperation in science, environment and Arabic
language fields. They also discussed establishing partnership and cooperation in different fields, such as exchange of students and academics
and conducting joint researches.
The two sides also discussed cooperation in establishing a programme
for Arabic language and literature at SQU for teaching Arabic to German students and hosting students of the Free University of Berlin for
one full year or one semester to study the Arabic language. Conversation during the meeting discussed the possibility of benefiting the German side from the outcomes of archaeological researches and studies.
The two sides agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU)
between the two universities to activate their cooperation. The two
sides also discussed means of activating research cooperation with the
SQU Centre of Environmental Studies and Research (CESAR) especially
in researches related to environment, green house and climate change.
SQU Receives WHO Delegation
Spotlight on Civilizations of
the Middle East
Sultan Qaboos University, represented by the History and Archeology
Student Group organized the second historical forum under the title
“The civilizations of the Middle East” at the exhibition hall of the Student Services Center. The event was held under the patronage of H.E
Hassan bin Mohammed Al Lawati, Advisor for the Minister of Heritage and Culture. The event sought to introduce the Ancient Near East
civilizations and its contributions to various aspects of human life in
order to know the immortal achievements of the east civilization and
to attract university and private universities and colleges students and
school students to be familiar to the civilizations of the east.
The activities of the forum focused on identifying the exact geographic
locations of the ancient Near East civilizations, identifying the mutual
civilizational relations between the ancient Near East countries. Further, the event gave insights into applying the technology in serving the
historical and archaeological knowledge, and raising awareness about
the importance of the role of civilizations and historical heritage.
The forum was accompanied an exhibition, which discussed the civilizations of the Near East from different perspectives; it was divided into
eight booths. The “Experience and Biography” program featured Dr.
Mohammed bin Saad Al Muqaddam, Assistant Professor in the Department of History, College of Arts and Social Sciences, who is a specialist
in history. He shared his lifelong experience in studying history.
H.E Dr. Ali bin Saud Al-Bemani, the Vice-Chancellor of Sultan Qaboos
University, received a delegation from the United Nations led by Dr.
Oleg Chestnov, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health. The
meeting was attended by H.H Dr.Sayyidah Muna bint Fahd Al Said, Assistant Vice Chancellor for International Cooperation and Prof. Amer Ali
Al Rawas, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Community Service, and deans and academicians from the College of Medicine
and Health Sciences, the College of Nursing, the College of Agriculture
& Marine Sciences, the College of Law, and the College of Education.
The visit was aimed at following up and evaluating the progress in implementing the UN political declaration on non-communicable diseases
(NCDs), which was issued in September 2011. In addition, the meeting
discussed the role of SQU and related colleges in combating non-communicable diseases.
P3
20 April 2016
Insight
High Rates
of Antenatal
Depression
Omani women have a high rate of possible depression during pregnancy,
a groundbreaking new study published in the latest issue of the Sultan
Qaboos University Medical Journal has revealed. The study is the first investigation of antenatal depression in Oman. The researchers studied 959
pregnant Omani women who were attending local primary care health
centers in Muscat. They used the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
questionnaire to measure symptoms of depression in the study group.
According to the questionnaire responses, almost a quarter of these women (24.3%) had antenatal depression. This rate is high in comparison to
that reported from other Arab and developed countries around the world
including Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, Australia and the UK.
pregnancy planning. He also suggests that counselling services are provided for married couples who are experiencing problems within their
marriage.
“It was concerning that our study showed such a high prevalence of possible antenatal depression in Oman,” commented Dr Mohammed Al-Azri, the study’s lead researcher and an Associate Professor in the Family
Medicine and Public Health department of Sultan Qaboos University. “If
this form of depression is not diagnosed early on, these women suffer and
their babies could also suffer,” he added.
The study concluded that significant changes need to be made within
Oman’s public health system in order to identify those affected by antenatal depression so they can be treated as soon as possible. “Screening
for the presence of antenatal depression should be included as a routine
part of antenatal care,” affirmed Dr Al-Azri. “Sufficient support should
be provided to all those affected women including counselling services.
Also, women with severe forms of this depression who are not responding to counselling should be referred to psychologists or psychiatrists as
appropriate.”
In pregnant women, antenatal depression is known to increase the risk of
pre-eclampsia—a serious pregnancy complication characterized by high
blood pressure which can lead to early labor and delivery. Other complications of depression during pregnancy include Caesarean section births,
spontaneous preterm births, suicidal thoughts and the development of
post-natal depression
For the babies, antenatal depression has been associated with slower fetal
activity, low birth weight, admission to the neonatal care unit and sudden infant death. If the depression continues after birth, these babies may
receive insufficient physical and psychological care from their mothers.
Their older siblings may also suffer from the secondary effects of maternal depression.
The researchers found that the main factors associated with antenatal
depression were unplanned pregnancies and marital conflict. In order
to combat these issues in Oman, Dr Al-Azri recommends that women
should be provided with increased education about contraception and
20 April 2016
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Dr Al-Azri is concerned that antenatal depression often goes undiagnosed in Oman. “This could be for many reasons, including an unawareness by the attending physicians that this is a common problem, a lack
of experience in diagnosing antenatal depression and a lack of medical
guidelines and tools to diagnose the condition. Also women might not
be willing to talk about psychological or personal problems with their
doctor,” he explained.
Dr. Al-Azri has pointed out that there are limitations to this study. For
example the study data was gathered via a questionnaire and the women
were not clinically diagnosed with antenatal depression by a qualified
psychiatrist, meaning the true rate of antenatal depression may have been
under- or over-estimated. Although the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression
Scale used in this study is known as a reliable and sensitive indicator
of ante- and postnatal depression, there may still be cultural differences
which could have affected the results. In addition, some of the women included in the study may have had pre-existing undiagnosed depression.
The symptoms of antenatal depression include a significant lack of energy, tearfulness, chronic anxiety, emotional detachment and feelings
of isolation, guilt or suicide. “Any pregnant women experiencing these
symptoms should talk to their doctor about this as soon as possible,”
urged Dr Al-Azri.
Mind Over Matter
Migration of Bar-tailed Godwits Wintering
at Barr Al Hikman
Bird migration is one the most enthralling aspects of avian world
that has fascinated mankind for a long time. About two centuries ago
people believed that migratory birds hibernated in winter buried in
mud or in hollow trees. With advancing technology and behavior
studies we know that migratory birds may travel several hundred
to thousand kilometers to warmer conditions in the fall and return
in the spring to breed. Monitoring the migration routes and the consistency of birds’ time could be a major indicator of any potential
local, regional or global climate change. Such studies provide crucial
information about where birds go and how they survive outside the
breeding season. The twice a yearly migration from overwintering
to breeding sites and the return trip occur all over the world in wellestablished routes or the flyways. Within the flyways different taxa
could limit their migration to only selected parts. Migration of shorebirds in the West Asian-East African flyway is poorly understood
compared to other flyways. Waterbirds are good indicators of the
status of the overall ecological status of wetlands.
As part of The Research Council (TRC) sponsored project on ‘Remote Sensing and Geospatial Data Analysis of Barr Al Hikman Intertidal Ecosystem: Implications of Cascading Predator-prey Effects in
a Pristine Seagrass-based Food Web’ researchers from Sultan Qaboos
University and NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
are tracking the migration of bar-tailed godwits wintering at Barr Al
Hikman. The study is the first of its kind to track the migration of
bar-tailed godwits within the West Asian-East African flyway.
The bar tailed-godwit is known to breed on the Artic coasts and tundra in Europe and Asia and spend the winters on the coast of tropical
and temperate regions including Sultanate of Oman, Australia and
New Zealand. A recent survey at Barr Al Hikman in January 2016
counted 60,000 winter visitors accounting for approximately 33% of
the flyway population. Bar-tailed godwit’s endurance in migration
has generated a lot of interest lately when an individual traveled
nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand, a distance of 11,000 km in
8 days and that is the record for any bird. Unfortunately, we know
virtually nothing about the bar-tailed godwits wintering in Oman
including their migration, stopover, staging and breeding areas. It
is quite possible that even the bar tailed godwits at Barr Al Hikman
belong to a separate subspecies.
A team of professional bird catchers caught 10 bar-tailed godwits,
ringed and fitted them with 5 gram Solar Platform Transmitter
Terminals (PTTs) in November 2015. The birds were caught with
mist nets opened on the mudflats in the night and meticulous effort and caution were taken to ensure that they were not harmed or
disturbed, carried the equipment without difficulty, and returned to
normal life including breeding. All the individuals and are currently
in the air, implying that the tags have been properly fitted and are
working properly. The daily movements can be tracked from Argos
satellites The birds have been provided with the following names of
villages, town and islands near to Barr Al Hikman; Abb, Filim, Hilf,
Khaluf, Mawil, Mahut, Masirah, Nuqdah, Shaghaf, Shannah. Interested readers, researchers and students are encouraged to track the
live local movements and migration of the birds, and also contribute
to the blog at the project homepage http://www.omanbarralhikman.org/. The researchers shall be glad to know your thoughts and
suggestions on where the bar-tailed godwits might breed.
P5
20 April 2016
News Round Up
CEPS Holds Industry
Advisory Board Meeting
The Information Systems Department at the College of Economics and Political science (CEPS) at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU),
held its first Industry Advisory Board meeting on Thursday, 11 February. The mission of the information systems (IS) advisory board
is to “foster partnership between the information systems department and leading IS executives, with diverse spectrum of expertise
from the public and private organizations in Oman. It also aims to
provide continuous advice, guidance and support for the development of IS Department’s teaching, research, and community service
in order to stay abreast of real world emerging IS issues and trends.
The meeting commenced with the welcoming speech delivered by
Dr. Saeed Al-Muharrami, Dean of the College of Economics and
Political Science. Dr. Saeed welcomed, thanked the members of the
advisory board and indicated that “the college’s vision and its goal
to formally establish ties with the industry through the Advisory
board at the college and the department levels; such ties are critical to enrich and strengthen the teaching, research and community
service at the college ”. Dr. Munther Al-Busaidi, Assistant Dean for
Training and Community Service added that these industry links
are critical for providing better training opportunities for our students. Dr. Kamla Al-Busaidi, the Head of the Information Systems
Department, thanked the members and introduced the department
and its main achievements. Dr. Kamla commented on this meeting
“We were honored and pleased by each member of our IS advisory board; it was a big success and this meeting is a starting point
for a continuous productive collaboration that will strengthen our
academic programs and consequently strengthens our graduates’
skills to meet the needs of local and international organizations in
Oman”.
Dr. Zahran Al-Salti, the department’s external liaison, introduced
the members of the IS advisory board and presented the vision and
objectives of IS Advisory board. He commented that “We managed
to bring leading IT executives from various sectors such as Oil and
gas, banking, telecommunications and health to discuss key issues
related to the current challenges and future plans of the IS department. We had a fruitful discussion and exchange of information”.
Students from Information systems group ISG were also invited to
introduce the group’s achievements and forthcoming activities. The
main theme of this first IS advisory board meeting was to discuss
opportunities of collaborations and the introduction of specializations in the IS undergraduate program. Dr. Ali Al-Badi, the co-chair
of the specializations committee moderated this discussion. The
meeting ended by concluding remarks of Dr. Saeed Al-Muharrami, in which he thanked the IS advisory board members for their
enriching discussion and their kind cooperation and willingness to
support the college and the IS department in its academic programs
in terms of training, workshops, research and other activities.
20 April 2016
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SQU Conducts Blood Donation
Competition among Colleges
With the aim of encouraging blood donation and increasing the
awareness of it among the Sultan Qaboos University students
and faculty, the blood donation committee and the “Donor
1000” student group organized a donation competition between
SQU colleges during the period 21 February to 9 April 2016. The
competition started with a formal opening ceremony under the
patronage of the Dr. Yuousf Salim Al Hinai, the Dean of Student
Affairs at SQU. During the ceremony, a draw was conducted to
divide the 9 competing colleges into 3 groups. The competition
between the colleges in each group lasted for 2 weeks, during
which the colleges were evaluated based on different criteria.
These include the number of donors from each college, the efforts made by the students in increasing the awareness in the
colleges, and performance of the colleges in the knowledge
competition. Finally, the colleges qualified from the first three
groups will compete eventually in the first month of April for
the prizewinner.
Dr. Arwa Al Riyami, the Chairperson of the Blood Donation
Committee at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital appraised
the efforts of the students in organizing and running the competition. “This competition highlights the important rule of the
students in spreading awareness on blood donation and in recruiting blood donors to support patients in need of blood at the
Sultan Qaboos University Hospital”. She stressed that the need
for blood in the University Hospital is continuous throughout
the year, especially with the expansions of the clinical services in
the hospital. This initiative highlights the importance of having
similar initiatives in encouraging blood donation in the community. Dr. Yousef Al Hinai, Dean of Student Affairs, said that this
student activity is an innovative example to continue in future.
He highlighted the positive effect of this competition in spreading the knowledge of blood donation in the university campus.
The blood donation campaigns carried out by the Blood Donation Committee at SQU is ongoing throughout the year within
and outside the university campus in order to fulfill the actual
needs of blood units for the hospital. In addition, the committee
is currently working on disseminating the knowledge of blood
donation and encouraging the public to start and continue to
donate blood. The Donor 1000 team is a student group in the
college of Medicine and Health Sciences. Marwa Al Shukri,
head of the donor 1000 team said that the team was established
in 2014 in order to spread the culture of blood donation in the
university community and beyond, and to recruit blood donors
to donate blood in the blood banks. The team had won the third
place of projects submitted for competition for the International
Federation of Medical Students’ Association award for the medical students last year.
Panorama
Perceptions Arabs Hold about
their Own Language
By: Dr. Abdul Gabbar Al Sharafi
The Department of English Language & Literature of the College of
Arts & Social Sciences at SQU organized a talk titled “Arabic Language
Ideology: The Arabs, Arabic and Language Anxiety” delivered by
Prof. Yasir Suleiman, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Professor of Modern
Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge. In his lecture, the guest
speaker addressed the notion of myths and distinguished between
myths and traditions in relation to the beliefs, values and perceptions
Arabs usually hold about their own language.
metaphors of Arabic being under attack, and those depicting Arabic as
being in crisis. All those titles call for immediate actions to rescue, save
and protect the Arabic language. Prof. Suleiman concluded that anxiety about Arabic has been there for at least 7 centuries since the publication of Lisaan Al Arab by Ibn Manzour who referred to this anxiety
in his introduction to the Dictionary. “It has been there in the past and
it is still in the present, so it is not a new phenomenon and this anxiety
is common in other languages as well”, he said.
Prof. Suleiman prefers to call them traditions instead of myths because
unlike myths, traditions tend to be more rooted and are widely shared
perceptions. He argued that myths are part of ideology and the social
pressure of myths can sometimes drive policy makers to take decisions
in favor of those myths. The speaker shared with the audience data
taken from two main sources, Al Jazeera website, and many Arabic
book titles published both in the past and in the present. He argued
that language anxiety is usually caused not so much by errors that
Arabs make in the grammar or lexical choices or even in the spelling
when they speak or write in Arabic but it is caused by concerns that
relate to the status of Arabic as a symbol of identity and a symbol of
power.
His Majesty’s Chair at Cambridge
His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, has bestowed a gift on the University of Cambridge for the permanent establishment of a Professorship of Modern Arabic. The Chair is known as the His Majesty Sultan
Qaboos bin Said Professorship of Modern Arabic and is located within
the Faculty of Oriental Studies.
Prof. Suleiman distinguished between language anxiety and language
fear. Language fear is the feeling that Arabs have about the way they
make mistakes when they use their language, and he proposed that
the solution to this is to do corpus-based planning in which grammar
and spelling rules are revised, reinforced and consolidated based on
corpus analysis. This fear is normal and is evident not only in the Arab
world but also in many other language communities. The other type
of fear is called language anxiety and it is related to the power and
status of the language. Again this second type is also normal and has
been around for centuries in Arabic and other languages. What is not
normal, however, is that we try to find answers to status-based concerns from corpus-based sources. The normal situation would be that
questions of grammatical accuracy, spelling and semantic acceptability
should be answered through conscious corpus planning to show the
use and usage of Arabic at a particular point in time. Questions about
the status and power of Arabic should be addressed elsewhere, i.e. in
the political, economic and social spheres.
In his talk, Prof. Suleiman presented numerous examples from Al Jazeera website corpus that show that Arabic is currently being associated with several attributes that instigate various forms of anxiety. He
also presented numerous examples from Arabic book titles that explicitly refer to a crisis that Arabic is facing using several metaphors, i.e.
His Majesty the Sultan has long been a generous supporter of scholarship and learning. His gifts to Cambridge – made through the Office of the Adviser to His Majesty the Sultan, for Cultural Affairs helps
achieve his goal of enabling the Arabic language to become a living,
modern and freely developing entity. They will also underline Oman’s
unique position in binding Arabic-speaking nations with the rest of the
world. Arabic has been taught at the University of Cambridge since
the 17th century and the UK’s first ever professorship in the subject,
the Sir Thomas Adams’s Professorship of Arabic, was established there
in 1632.
Prof. Yasir Suleiman
Professor Suleiman is Chair of the Panel of Judges, British-Kuwaiti
Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies. He serves
as Trustee on the Boards of the following organizations: Arab-British
Chamber Charitable Foundation, International Prize for Arab Fiction
(in association with the Man-Booker Prize), Banipal Trust for Arab Literature and is trustee of the Gulf Research Centre-Cambridge. He is
a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals and book
series. Professor Suleiman is Commander of the Order of the British
Empire (CBE). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, formerly Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies.
His research covers the cultural politics of the Middle East with special focus on identity, conflict, diaspora studies and modernization as
these issues relate to language, modern Arabic literature, translation
and memory. He also conducts research in Arabic grammatical theory
and the Arabic intellectual tradition in the pre-modern period.
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20 April 2016
Straight Talk
Nutraceuticals work
with no side effects
Dr. Mohammed
Abdul Sattar Khan
Dr. Mohammed Abdul Sattar Khan is an Instructor in Anaesthesia at
Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Hospitals for Children. He gave a talk about nutraceuticals at a
symposium on “Food and Brain Health” organized by the Food Science & Nutrition Department of the College of Agricultural & Marine
Sciences at SQU.
when I earned the chance to work at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Hospitals for Children. This
academic opening has provided me a chance to understand and learn
more about the burn-induced inflammation and prevent the related
pathological consequences by discovering therapeutic measures utilizing pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals and translating the research
outcome for the benefit of burned patients, especially children.
Horizon: Your talk at SQU focused on nutraceuticals. Can you explain this emerging concept in medicine and its implications in human
health?
Dr. Khan: Pharmaceuticals or synthetic drugs that have been around
for decades are predominant in health care system, but these days
more and more people including physicians, researchers and patients
are becoming either cautious or reluctant to use the pharmaceutical
products. This is happening due to the side effects and unwanted complications of these drugs that are associated with health. In the past,
it was difficult to convince people to limit the consumption of these
drugs but now the patients themselves have become aware of the
danger coupled with these drugs. Fortunately, in recent years, alternative medicine in the form of nutraceuticals has emerged as an option to replace synthetic drugs to treat patients with diabetes, cancer,
neurological and other common diseases. Nutraceuticals are the bioactive components that are derived from natural products containing
health-giving additives and having medicinal benefits with meagre or
no side effects. There are hundreds and thousands of natural products available in the nature, but there are a few natural products that
are mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. For example, the health benefits
of honey, fig (Ficus carica), olive (Olea europaea), dates (Pheenix dactylifera), pomegranate (Punica granatum) and grapes (Vitis vinifera)
etc. are quoted in the Holy Quran and the black seed (Nigella sativa),
mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), vinegar (mainly acetic acid) etc. are
described in Hadith.
Horizon: Why do companies prefer pharmaceuticals, not nutraceuticals?
Dr. Khan: There are some strong reasons for corporates’ fondness and
inclination towards pharmaceuticals. The synthetic (pharmaceutical)
chemical compounds are not found in nature can be patented and are
expensive. Nutraceuticals extracted from the food cannot be patented,
so they usually are much less expensive. Patients turn to nutraceuticals in this modern era of advanced allopathic medicine because nutraceuticals extracted from the natural products substitute the missing
chemical as a part of food ingredients in the body without any side
effects. Many synthetic drugs or pharmaceuticals cannot be properly
metabolized and recycled, so they inhibit unrelated signaling pathways and cause side effects. Synthetic drugs are the derivatives or
modified form of the natural chemicals that produce a similar effect
but also produce undesirable effects and health-related complications.
This notion of awareness in common people and opinions of patients
from their personal experiences has resuscitated the concept of using
nutraceuticals replacing pharmaceuticals as medicines.
Horizon: How would you introduce yourself with reference to your academic and professional background?
Dr. Khan: I have always been fascinated by the study of living beings
since my childhood. By following my fascination and inspiration, I decided to take up biology as major for my undergraduate program at Osmania
University, Hyderabad, India. Then did my masters in microbiology at
Aligarh Muslim University, India. For my Ph.D., I had to travel farther to
Japan, a country of hard working people. Later, I got an opportunity at
National Institutes of Health, USA, to study the oxidative stress-induced
apoptosis (programmed cell death) in leukemic cells and Saccharomyces
cerevisiae (yeast) that produced two articles in Proceedings of National
Academy of Science, USA. Now, my academic career is more decorated
20 April 2016
Horizon: What is your feedback on the SQU workshop and interaction
with fellow speakers, researchers and students?
Dr. Khan: There are a few reasons why the “Food and Brain Health”
symposium was so special to me. The first reason that made me excited
is that I had revisited Oman after 22 years. I lived in different places,
Seeb, Barka and Sohar, from 1992 to 1995 and spent the best days of my
life here. During that period, I paid a visit to SQU as a visitor several
times to meet my friends. This time, I have visited as a guest on invitation from SQU to attend the symposium on “Food and Brain Health”
organized by Dr. Mohammed Essa and team. This event not only provided me the opportunity to know and meet fellow speakers from different corners of the world but also allowed me to present scientific
perspectives on various topic associated with food and brain function.
Listening to the local researchers also broadened our scientific knowledge, which included the clinical and basic aspects of research involving food and neurological disorders. The best part of the workshop
was the interaction with students, who demonstrated a professional
attitude by raising well-carved questions full of curiosity and interest.