Entrepreneur Leena El-Ali: Greed for Money & Identity are Blatantly Destroying Our Planet

Leena El-Ali is a superb entrepreneur with a broad spectrum of achievements that demonstrate her outstanding proficiency in banking, finance, and company management. As such, she stands out for her strategic thinking in these domains.

With over thirty years of experience as a businesswoman and investment fund manager, she has collaborated with numerous global non-profit organisations in the Middle East, North Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, specialising in innovative solutions and protecting clients’ investments in emerging economies.

Interviewed by: Mohsen Hasan

Her experiences have significantly reduced global conflicts, promoted peace, and developed sustainable democracy through governance. She has also highlighted women’s and human rights benefits and provided consulting services in international work, sustainable development, and prudent investment, emphasising the benefits of these areas.

Since her tenure from 2005 to 2012 as an editor-in-chief, author, and publisher focused on addressing issues of Islamic-Western understandings, Al-Ali has enjoyed a respected position in journalism.

In addition to her Lebanese nationality, the presence of common religious characteristics and their dominance among all the religions coexisting in her societal environment—particularly in the British and American societies to which she belongs as an authentic citizen—this smart and creative personality’s extensive knowledge, humanism, and civilisation provided significant support.

Her multilingualism, including Arabic, English, Spanish, and French, has significantly influenced her social and spiritual life and cultural integration. Her book, No Truth Without Beauty: God, the Qur’an, and Women’s Rights, became the best-selling book in 2022, promoting a civilisational and universal discussion and refuting Islamophobia in Western societies which, when compared to the reality of the miraculous Qur’anic text, focusses entirely on gender equality and the historical, literary, and women’s concerns inconsistencies in Islamic civilisations.

This was the encounter with Leena El-Ali, a remarkable entrepreneur, by Arabisk London.

First of all, how have the cultural contexts of Lebanon and the UK influenced me intellectually, cognitively, and personally?

My experience studying, working and living in the U.K. taught me, above all, to be precise in my use of language. I had always loved the English language and came to marvel at its tendency toward accuracy in speech, and I found myself increasingly trying to bring that level of clarity to my speech in Arabic.

It helped me sharpen my understanding and use of the Arabic language, and in the process, I believe, to clarify my thinking overall so as to make me perhaps quite intolerant of fuzzy ideas, always looking for maximum clarity in any proposition.

On a humane level, I was fascinated by British sensitivity to phrases like “it’s not fair” and “in good faith”, finding a natural affinity with
British culture is around principles of fairness and justice that have always been so close to my heart.

You are enthusiastic about learning other languages, including Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. What common cultural imprint have you discovered beneath these various linguistic environments?

Learning to speak other languages and, more importantly, becoming immersed in them socially or professionally, is like travelling around the world without needing a visa in the sense that you move around and integrate more fluidly. It’s been one of the great blessings of my life to have the opportunity to learn several languages for the great joy and experiences this has made possible, but also because it has shown me how behind apparently different customs and ways of speaking lies our common humanity on every level that matters.

Our differences in culture, ethnicity, language, religion and race are, in fact, pearls that make the world more beautiful and interesting, but they are also pearls on a single string that is our human condition and our humanity.

When authoring No Truth Without Beauty: God, the Quran, and Women’s Rights, how was the process? And what conditions surrounded this voyage?

Writing this book was the most wonderful experience of my life. It brought me more joy than anything I have experienced before or since. I felt very close to God throughout, meaning that I felt spiritually connected the whole time and never felt alone in the task. To be specific, when I found something hard to understand or to synthesise for the purpose of clear presentation, I would ask for help in prayer and meditation and keep doing so until the help came.

Sometimes, after posing a question and sitting quietly and patiently in meditation, an answer I could not have possibly conceived of would suddenly land in my mind, and I would know in my deepest being that it was the right answer, and I would be overwhelmed with joy and fascination at the process.

It actually made me think of how we have forgotten, collectively speaking, how important contemplation and meditation are in Islam itself, even though we all know that the Prophet would go on meditation retreats in a mountain cave regularly and that it was on one such retreat that the Archangel Gabriel first appeared to him.

Nor did he stop this custom as his mission then began and would go on for the next 23 years, for we know that he continued the practice silent meditation in a small room in the house he lived in with Khadija, and also that he very often would not rush to respond to things and act but would take his time to contemplate a given matter. I feel we would all benefit if we sat still for a few minutes after prayer to just be with God and listen to what he might inspire in us.

As to why I wrote the book, after travelling around the world for work for many years, it became clear to me that there were many misperceptions about what the Qur’an says about many issues, including women’s issues. Those myths and beliefs can often prevent people from embracing or participating in seemingly beneficial solutions or reforms. Guilt often holds regular people back, both men and women, specifically the fear of doing the wrong thing from a religious perspective.

So, the idea was to consolidate and synthesise the wonderful work of so many extraordinary scholars on the subject of women and the Qur’an, rather than leave the information diffuse and relatively difficult to build upon. In the process, just to be clear and transparent, I had
some new insights which I highlight as such in the book, so as not to conflate them with previously published views by such scholars. I also decided to cover all the issues in which women are treated differently from men, and that are usually attributed to the Qur’an or Islam as such—seventeen topics in all.

These include the subordination of wives to husbands, the right to divorce, political and religious leadership, inheritance rights, legal testimony, domestic violence, and much more. The book serves as a comprehensive, user-friendly reference for anyone seeking answers.

However, what inspired you to write this book from a personal and humanitarian standpoint?

Muslim societies have gone from being ahead of the rest of the world by centuries, if not by over a millennium on some issues—think divorce rights, property ownership and inheritance rights, and even civil or interfaith marriage—to being left behind in an ironically pre-Islamic time warp on many other issues. It’s sad to say, but most of this unjustifiable restriction and sometimes even denigration of women appears to have stemmed from the Middle East and has been exported to other parts from there.

Most egregiously, rather than take ownership of our own choices, we blame that which we claim to love the most—our God. Disappointing.

How impressed are you with women’s rights in the Arab and Muslim worlds? And how do they stack up against women’s rights in other countries?

My observations regarding the relationship between women and money come less from my professional experience and more from my life experience. Generalising is difficult as there are always extremes at both ends, but I have found that women overall tend to be more prudent with money, with the least responsible usually stemming from those brought up in environments where everything is provided for them liberally, so that they develop an implicit sense of entitlement to it.

Women who work hard to earn a living, on the other hand, are still struggling to earn as much as men even when they do the same job and even if they do it better, an inequity that is being grappled with more and more in public in the West now, with calls for equal pay.

As a specialist in financial and investment strategy, what is your perspective on how women and money are related globally in terms of influencing factors?

After more than 30 years in finance, business and social entrepreneurship, I would say that my deepest convictions are that if we all try to listen more deeply before we speak, if we try to imagine being in others’ shoes, and if we let go of our societal obsession with “winning” by understanding that sharing and finding common ground can lead to win-win rather than win-lose results, then the world would be a much better place in every sphere of life.

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After more than 30 years of working as a fund manager and social entrepreneur, what are the most significant cultural and human insights you have learnt?

International human rights have been eroded in recent years in a staggering and downright shocking way, and it is my sense that this has been made possible by the wholesale adoption of greed as a badge of honour in two ways: “material greed” that runs unchecked to the point of demanding more from our planet than it can possibly give if we continue to degrade and abuse it rather than work with it; and what I call “identity greed”, where many have brazenly and unashamedly sought to acquire exclusive power and advantage of every kind for themselves and those they perceive as being like them, whether ethnically, racially, or religiously.

As a specialist in strategic humanitarian theory, what do you believe is causing international actions to further erode human rights on Earth? How can we reverse these patterns?

Non-profit organisations play a key role in filling the gaps left behind by governments that do not prioritise their citizens’ right to a life of dignity in every sense, from individual safety and freedom of choice to creativity and productivity.

The fact that such initiatives have to be dependent on third-party sources for funding is an indictment of governments’ sense of responsibility for providing a constructive and stable environment for their people, within which they can thrive.

In summary, how do you view the contribution of nonprofits to promoting human security and reducing conflict?

Many governments do not prioritise the right to a decent existence in all its aspects. Therefore, nonprofits are essential in bridging the gaps created by these governments, from promoting individual freedom and safety to encouraging innovation and productivity.

All things considered, continuing to support these programmes from outside sources makes it abundantly evident to governments that they have obligations and play a part in creating a stable and productive environment that allows their citizens to prosper.

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