SHARJAH // In the 19th century, the Ruler of Sharjah planted a banyan tree in the heart of what is now the emirate’s city.
More trees followed, and the green space became one of the most popular meeting places in the area – cool, shady and inviting.
New generations of Sharjah residents will be able to enjoy the 3.7-hectare area even more after a Dh22 million redevelopment is completed early in the new year, after almost four years of work.
They have been given a sneak preview as the gates to Rolla Square Park were thrown open for the National Day week, after an inauguration ceremony by Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah.
“The influx of people was unbelievable. The park was packed with families during and after the inauguration,” said Tajamel Mahmoud, a security guard at the site, which is open until the end of the week.
The main fountain in the middle of the square was full of splashing children, while others ran wild in the wide open spaces.
Maciek Zeleszkiewic, a Pole who arrived to Sharjah three years ago, was at the park with his daughter, aged 1.
“It’s so clean and beautiful,” said Mr Zeleszkiewic.
“My girl is enjoying her aimless walk. She refuses to sit, she is enjoying the space.”
“There are not a lot of good places near this area for my daughter, I’m going to try to come here every day while it’s still open.”
The parkland was named after the banyan tree – known locally as rolla – planted by Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi, according to the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority.
The tree grew wide and tall, and over time it became a meeting place for workers, who would sit beneath it and talk with friends.
During the summer months they would shelter from the scorching heat in the tree’s shade.
The park, listed among the emirate’s historical sites, is close to the city’s bus station and an outdoor market. It was one of the biggest open spaces in Sharjah until it was closed off, with dozens of banyan trees.
Smitha Sandeep from India watched Sheikh Sultan’s visit on Tuesday from her balcony overlooking the park.
“I’m so excited now that the park is open,” Ms Sandeep said. “It’s close by for our kids, we can monitor them from our balconies.”
“It was overcrowded yesterday. I thought I would bring my little daughter to play here early in the day.”
Angel Abart, from the Philippines, was enjoying a chat with her friend in the shade of the park’s famous trees.
“I heard about this place only yesterday so I came to check it out with my friend,” Ms Abart said. “The trees are amazing and the weather is really good. I will be coming here more often.”
Once completed, 60 per cent of the revamped park will be set aside as green space, with the remainder used for paths and other facilities for visitors.
It will contain seven fountains and a cafeteria designed in the shape of a tree.
tzriqat@thenational.ae
AIDA RETURNS
Director: Carol Mansour
Starring: Aida Abboud, Carol Mansour
Rating: 3.5./5
Company profile
Name: Yodawy
Based: Egypt
Founders: Karim Khashaba, Sherief El-Feky and Yasser AbdelGawad
Sector: HealthTech
Total funding: $24.5 million
Investors: Algebra Ventures, Global Ventures, MEVP and Delivery Hero Ventures, among others
Number of employees: 500
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
EMIRATES'S REVISED A350 DEPLOYMENT SCHEDULE
Edinburgh: November 4 (unchanged)
Bahrain: November 15 (from September 15); second daily service from January 1
Kuwait: November 15 (from September 16)
Mumbai: January 1 (from October 27)
Ahmedabad: January 1 (from October 27)
Colombo: January 2 (from January 1)
Muscat: March 1 (from December 1)
Lyon: March 1 (from December 1)
Bologna: March 1 (from December 1)
Source: Emirates
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Kill
Director: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Starring: Lakshya, Tanya Maniktala, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya, Raghav Juyal
Rating: 4.5/5
Friday's schedule in Madrid
Men's quarter-finals
Novak Djokivic (1) v Marin Cilic (9) from 2pm UAE time
Roger Federer (4) v Dominic Thiem (5) from 7pm
Stefanos Tsitsipas (8) v Alexander Zverev (3) from 9.30pm
Stan Wawrinka v Rafael Nadal (2) from 11.30pm
Women's semi-finals
Belinda Bencic v Simona Halep (3) from 4.30pm
Sloane Stephens (8) v Kiki Bertens (7) from 10pm
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
The Bloomberg Billionaire Index in full
1 Jeff Bezos $140 billion
2 Bill Gates $98.3 billion
3 Bernard Arnault $83.1 billion
4 Warren Buffett $83 billion
5 Amancio Ortega $67.9 billion
6 Mark Zuckerberg $67.3 billion
7 Larry Page $56.8 billion
8 Larry Ellison $56.1 billion
9 Sergey Brin $55.2 billion
10 Carlos Slim $55.2 billion
TWISTERS
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Glenn Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos
Rating: 2.5/5
Armies of Sand
By Kenneth Pollack (Oxford University Press)
Scoreline
Swansea 2
Grimes 20' (pen), Celina, 29'
Man City 3
Silva 69', Nordfeldt 78' (og), Aguero 88'
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The years Ramadan fell in May
The years Ramadan fell in May
ROUTE TO TITLE
Round 1: Beat Leolia Jeanjean 6-1, 6-2
Round 2: Beat Naomi Osaka 7-6, 1-6, 7-5
Round 3: Beat Marie Bouzkova 6-4, 6-2
Round 4: Beat Anastasia Potapova 6-0, 6-0
Quarter-final: Beat Marketa Vondrousova 6-0, 6-2
Semi-final: Beat Coco Gauff 6-2, 6-4
Final: Beat Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-2
A QUIET PLACE
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Djimon Hounsou
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Rating: 4/5
Confirmed bouts (more to be added)
Cory Sandhagen v Umar Nurmagomedov
Nick Diaz v Vicente Luque
Michael Chiesa v Tony Ferguson
Deiveson Figueiredo v Marlon Vera
Mackenzie Dern v Loopy Godinez
Tickets for the August 3 Fight Night, held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, went on sale earlier this month, through www.etihadarena.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae.
RESULT
Copa del Rey, semi-final second leg
Real Madrid 0
Barcelona 3 (Suarez (50', 73' pen), Varane (69' OG)
The biog
Name: Capt Shadia Khasif
Position: Head of the Criminal Registration Department at Hatta police
Family: Five sons and three daughters
The first female investigator in Hatta.
Role Model: Father
She believes that there is a solution to every problem
England squad
Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Dominic Bess, James Bracey, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Ben Foakes, Lewis Gregory, Keaton Jennings, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton, Jamie Overton, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Amar Virdi, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
The biog
Favourite food: Fish and seafood
Favourite hobby: Socialising with friends
Favourite quote: You only get out what you put in!
Favourite country to visit: Italy
Favourite film: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Family: We all have one!
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
The Specs
Engine: 1.6-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 118hp
Torque: 149Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Price: From Dh61,500
On sale: Now
Director: Shady Ali
Cast: Boumi Fouad , Mohamed Tharout and Hisham Ismael
Rating: 3/5
Specs: 2024 McLaren Artura Spider
Engine: 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 and electric motor
Max power: 700hp at 7,500rpm
Max torque: 720Nm at 2,250rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch auto
0-100km/h: 3.0sec
Top speed: 330kph
Price: From Dh1.14 million ($311,000)
On sale: Now
