“Eat the crusts, it will make your hair curly!”, “Add some honey to your tea instead of sugar, it will help your throat!”

Well after years of eating bread crusts, my hair is somewhere between curly and crazy so my faith in the old wives tales definitely diminished. It turns out however, that apart from being a great addition to many Middle Eastern recipes, there is some truth to the tale of honey being good for one’s health.

The tale is not a new one, since as far back as ancient Egypt it was used as a remedy for various ailments, applying it to wounds and making it part of the mummification process.

Since honey is largely made up of natural sugars, it is attracted to water making it capable of absorbing and maintaining moisture. This makes it an ideal application for external wounds, as it can absorb body fluids, while encouraging healing and preventing infection.

This ability to absorb fluids and prevent infection makes honey an amazing natural antibacterial and antibiotic, which explains the healing powers it has in a cup of tea (and as a natural cough medicine). In a world where antibiotics are prescribed for the smallest reasons, it might be worth remembering that after using these medicines, the body eventually builds up a certain amount of resistance to these drugs.

The healing powers of honey do not stop at a sore throat. By adding it daily to food instead of sugar it can also be used to lower levels of cholesterol, which can help fight various heart diseases.

From something as serious as heart disease to the annoyance of skin problems, honey can provide relief.

By mixing it with equal parts of cinnamon paste, you can apply it to your face as a natural relief for pimples, eczema and other skin infections.

While honey does not cure everything, there is definitely a reason for it to be so popular (there is some drama surrounding its production in Israel) in ancient medicine as well as Middle Eastern cooking.

So maybe Mary Poppins had it wrong, maybe it should have been “a spoonful of honey helps the medicine go down”?

After her grandfather’s house was demolished, Sheikha Mai committed to preserving Bahrain’s venerable places Image by dunsky via flickr

Though most of our architectural news depicts ongoing developments (like in Bahrain), the BBC series giving prominence to “heritage heroes” preserving more venerable developments, marinated in history, has steered our green news reel in a different direction.

We are especially proud to brag about the shepherds fielding one-third of all UNESCO’s world heritage sites in the Middle East. Sheikha Mai was the first such shepherdess to shine in the BBC’s spotlight.

Also Bahrain’s first female Minister of Culture, Sheikha Mai became interested in Bahrain’s historic settlements when her grandfather’s home was demolished. She told Time Out Bahrain that her grandfather, Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa was a central cultural personality in Bahrain during the early 1900s, so she founded the Shaikh Ebrahim Centre as a tribute to his legacy. The center is also the platform from which she launched her initial architectural preservation programs.

Among the projects on Bahrain’s defensive radar are traditional houses in Muharraq, the former capital, a Pearl Heritage Trail also in Muharraq, and the famous burial mounds that are unique to Bahrain.

In addition to her efforts to preserve it, Sheikha Mai has miraculously found the time to publish 10 books about Bahrain’s heritage. UNESCO was so impressed by this progress that they chose the smallest Arab state to host the World Heritage Regional Centre for Arab countries.

Sheikha Mai’s work should not overshadow that of the Middle East’s proceeding heroes: Be sure to visit the BBC’s Heritage Heroes Website to learn more about programs featuring the following sites: Beirut, 26th and 27th of June, Saudi Arabia 10th, and 11th of July, Morocco 17th and 18th of July, and Turkey on the 24th and 25th of July.

Also stay tuned for a discussion among a panel of urban experts who met in Riyadh to unwrap the numerous challenges facing a heritage preservationist. They are numerous, the challenges, so we salute the people who stand up against them.

[image by Hussain Shafei via flickr]

Ask around in Egypt and the environment is usually not on the top of most people’s agenda, especially considering the vast number of people living in poverty, unemployment rising, sexual harassment burgeoning and a government that constantly pushes its people toward oblivion. But that is not stopping a number of Muslim activists from speaking out on environmental issues, with calls in Jakarta recently at an environmental conference to turn the Islamic pilgrimage, or the Hajj, green.

The movement sees no qualms in combining faith with environmental protection. They argue that global warming does not discriminate between religion or region, activists said at the Jakarta meeting of the international Islamic green movement’s meeting.

Leading activist Mahmoud Akef of the Earth Mates Dialogue Center was one of nearly 200 Muslim delegates from across the world to call for a greener Hajj: “Because we are all living on this Earth and what is happening, or what’s affecting with regard to the climate change, affecting Americans, affects the Muslims here in Indonesia, affects Egypt, Muslims in Africa and Asia anywhere,” Akef said at the conference.

While the West has had lobbyists calling for environmental reform and a push toward ending carbon emissions to curtail global warming and climate change, for the post part, Muslim leaders and activists have shied away from the discussion. This is changing, and Akef is leading the charge.

He said that Muslim environmentalists want to have the message about climate change and global warming heard around the world, in the Middle East, in Islamic countries and in the mosques.

At the conference, the leaders announced a desire to implement a greener Hajj, where some three million Muslims participate in annually in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. They argued that it is the ideal location to raise awareness of global warming and the environmental impact individuals have.

The plan includes a ban on plastic bottles at Hajj sites and workshops about the link between environmental stewardship and the teaching of Islam.

Qu’ran as book of ecology

“The Qu’ran is kind of ecology book. A lot of verses tell about the environment and how to deal with the environment and how to protect the environment,” Akef said.

They are also looking into designating eco-friendly mosques and publish Islam’s Holy Book with paper from sustainable forests.

Muhammad Sembiring, part of the Indonesian environmental organization Kehati, says Muslim activists see no conflict between science and faith on the issue of the environment.

“It is proven there is totally no conflict, it is really [a] complement and it is shaking hands, it is matching,” Sembiring said.

The conference agreed that the meeting was a good starting point, but they added that a new approach to educating the larger population is needed in the near future.

(This story was reposted from the Egypt-based news site Bikya Masr.