Flowers of Devotion: Women who Cook – Gift to Mankind

Flowers of Devotion: Women who Cook – Gift to Mankind

In recent years one of the most popular cooks in Britain has been 32 year old Nadiya Jamir Hussain, whose culinary skills and engaging personality caught the public eye when she competed for and won the hit TV competition, the Great British Bake Off, in 2015.

A hijab wearing Muslim, Nadiya Hussain was born to a British Bangladeshi family, whose father was a chef and the owner of an Indian restaurant. Another Muslim chef and award winning cookbook author very much in the public eye is the Iranian American, Najmieh Khalili Batmanglij. In the 1980s her family relocated to the USA, where she wrote her highly acclaimed books about Iranian and Central Asian cooking and related customs, one of which won a Gourmand Cookbook Award, and another was for children, “Happy Nowruz: Cooking with Children to Celebrate the Persian New Year”.

In 2016, she was honoured as guest chef at the White House’s Nowruz celebrations in Washington, D.C., hosted by the First Lady, Michelle Obama. She is a member of the French culinary ‘hall of fame’ for women chefs, Les Dames d'Escoffier.

Ratings of the Middle East’s top female entrepreneurs often highlight Lebanese Christine Assouad Sfeir. While raising two young children, she has created one of the region’s most successful restaurant empires, which have expanded from Lebanon into Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the USA. She was selected as one of the 19th most powerful Arab women by Forbes in 2014, and as one of the most 100 powerful women for three consecutive years, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Christine Sfeir is now considered to be one of the world’s most powerful Arab women, and across the globe shares her insights on how to successfully run restaurant chains. She was honoured with the Arabian Businesswoman of the Year Award in Dubai in 2011.

Malaysia also has a notable female entrepreneurial success story, which began in 1984, when a group of housewives got together in the humble kitchen of Hajah Noraini binti Ahmad to make homemade cookies for local sale. From traditional handmade cookies to multimillion volume baking facilities, Noraini’s venture has since grown into a major Malaysian premium brand, Noraini’s Cookies.

The nation has a particularly strong track record of enterprising Muslim woman leaders in business, education and government who support their sisters in developing sustainable livelihoods through micro and small business development initiatives. These include the organization, Women Of Will (Pertubahan Wanita Berdaya), which offers micro loans to help disadvantaged women in Malaysia, empowering them to initiate and sustain their own businesses, rather than by providing handouts.

Another innovative programme supporting aspiring Malaysian female entrepreneurs is the new technology based Wireless Reach Mentoring Women in Business Programme, which utilises tablets, wireless connectivity and an online mentoring platform to connect its members with highly skilled business professional mentors from around the world. One woman, for instance, had begun selling breakfasts by the road side to support her children after her husband lost his job.

The programme enabled her to work with a mentor to learn how to generate the capital needed to open her own café and to realize her dream of building a sustainable business providing a stable income for herself and her family.

The programme also holds innovative urban pop up bazaars which generate awareness of its members’ businesses and showcase their products and services (encompassing health and wellness, food, beverages, fashion, apparel, arts and crafts, etc) while helping them gain experience in sales and promotion in the hustle and bustle of real life environments.

Such programmes are manifestations of a growing international consciousness of the importance of helping women across the globe in developing business start up and entrepreneurial skills. This received the highest level of acknowledgment in the July 2016 G20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, the second day of which focused on women’s empowerment.

The Russian Federation together with the world’s other leading nations announced the establishment of the World Bank’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Facility which will financially support women’s business start ups in developing countries. This is a joint publicprivate loan programme, whose initial funding of $325 million includes large donations from Germany, the USA, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

To quote from the G20 summit declaration, “This is going to be what we hope will be a multibillion dollar fund to support women entrepreneurs.”

Collectively, at all the multiple levels described above, the many women who cook make a fundamental contribution to driving our economies while, as they always have, underpinning human welfare and wellbeing. They deserve our respect and our gratitude.

GUY (GHAYDAR) PETHERBRIDGE PROFESSOR, EXPERT ON CULTURAL HERITAGE AND HISTORY OF ISLAM, AUSTRALIA, RUSSIA