Singer Janet Jackson was this week spotted in public for the first time since announcing her pregnancy – wear full Islamic dress.
The star is believed to have become a Muslim after marrying Qatari billionaire Wissam Al Manna, 41, in 2012.
Our exclusive pictures show the couple looking relaxed and happy as they shopped in London earlier this week.
The pair strolled hand in hand as Janet – who will become a mum for the first time later this year at the age of 50 – stroked her growing bump.
They were spotted browsing for children’s clothes at an upmarket boutique before stopping for lunch at a health food restaurant.
Janet, who has sold over 100 million records, is widely regarded as one of the most successful female solo artists of all time.
She was married twice before meeting her magnate husband.
Speculation that the star was expecting first surfaced in April this year, when she postponed her upcoming tour.
She told fans: “My husband and I are planning our family.”
But the star – who has become notoriously private in recent years – refused to confirm the news until October.
Posing for a picture with her bump in American magazine People, she said: “We thank God for our blessing.”
Al Manna is said to have been a great support to Janet since she learned she was to become a mum for the first time.
The pair are said to have met in 2010, but their liaison was kept so under wraps that barely anyone knew they were a couple until a year after they had wed.
They regularly jet around the world on exotic trips but are based in Al Manna’s native Doha, Qatar.
In 2014, he said: “We love traveling. “We love going to nice, exotic places far away from the world and from prying eyes.”
Janet is said to have taken a while to adjust to life in Qatar, due to the restrictions placed on women – and the fact she’s had to give up designer clothes.
INCHEON, South Korea (AP) — Qatari basketballers forfeited a women’s match against Mongolia on Wednesday and are considering withdrawing from the Asian Games competition after being refused permission to wear a hijab.
Confusion over the implementation of recently relaxed guidelines outlined by the sport’s international governing body, aimed at making the game more inclusive, could be the cause of the problem in Incheon.
“The Qatari players … refused to take off the hijab,” Asian Games Organizing Committee spokeswoman Anna Jihyun You told The Associated Press. Ten minutes after the scheduled start, “At 4:25 p.m. local time, the match was declared forfeited and awarded to Mongolia.”
The Qatari contingent was surprised by the decision, with its chef-de-mission Khalil al-Jabir saying the team “was not likely to play” basketball in these Asian Games if the players are not allowed to wear the hijab.
“We were expecting our players to play with the hijab, that’s why we came here,” he said. “Nobody told us that it will not be allowed and we are still waiting for clarifications.”
Qatar is scheduled to play Nepal on Thursday, leaving little time for a compromise unless FIBA, basketball’s international governing body, intervenes.
You said match officials working Wednesday’s game did not receive any instructions from FIBA to allow head coverings, and were only following the rules which restrict the use of headgear, hair accessories, and jewelry. Such restrictions were initially designed for the safety of players, but have recently been challenged on cultural and religious grounds.
“The organizing committee is not involved in the rules, and the match officials did not have any directions from world body FIBA regarding the same,” You said.
The rules of each sport at the Asian Games are governed by their respective international federations, and many allow head coverings for certain athletes during competition, including badminton, shooting, track and field and football.
A Qatar sports official and activist, identified by the Asian Games News Service as Ahlam Salem M. Al-Mana, said the decision to forfeit Wednesday’s game should serve as a message to the game’s world governing body.
“We have to take this stand,” she was quoted as saying by the AGNS. “Let the international association accept us. We are here to push the international association that all Muslim teams are ready to compete in any competition. We knew about the hijab ban, but we have to be here.
“We have to show everyone that we are ready to play, but the international association is not ready. Because the rules of the international association, they cannot participate. In football, handball, and martial arts competitions, women can wear hijab but not in basketball.”
Regulations about head coverings in basketball came into focus this year when two male Sikh players from India were told to remove their turbans during the Asia Cup in July in China.
Earlier this month, FIBA said it was launching a two-year trial phase allowing some players to wear head coverings.
However, the Mies, Switzerland-based organization issued a clarifying statement saying: “Please note the Central Board decision allows exceptions to be applied only at the national level and the Asian Games is an international event.”
To get an exemption for domestic tournaments, national federations must petition FIBA to allow players to play with their heads covered, plus submit follow-up reports twice a year.
FIBA’s governing body will evaluate the rule again next year, and determine whether to allow head covers at some level of international competition from next summer.
A full review in 2016 will decide if it will become a permanent rule change after the 2016 Olympics.
God’s messenger: Noah, said to have built an ark (pictured) which saved the human and animal worlds from a great flood, features in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but depicting Allah’s messengers is banned
One of the world’s most respected Islamic institutions has issued a fatwa against a Hollywood epic about Noah’s Ark because it ‘contradicts the teachings of Islam’.
Russell Crowe’s £75million film Noah has also been banned in three Arab countries after religious leaders complained that it depicted the Biblical figure – who is also a holy messenger in the Koran.
Due to premiere later this month, the blockbuster will not show in Qatar, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates and several other countries are expected to follow suit.
Islam forbids representing holy figures in art, instead using conceptual line patterns and lettering to adorn the walls of mosques.
A whole chapter of the Koran is devoted to Noah, who legend tells built an ark which saved himself, his family and many pairs of animals from a great flood.
He also features prominently in the Biblical book of Genesis and is revered by Christians and Jews.
Fatwa: Cairo’s al-Azhar (which includes the mosque pictured left) issued a fatwa, which is a ruling under Islamic law, saying the film starring Russell Crowe (right) as Noah was a ‘clear violation’ of their teachings. The film is due to premiere in the U.S. on March 28 and was due to air in Egypt in the near future.
The fatwa – a ruling or injunction under the laws of Islam – was made by the influential Al-Azhar institution in Egypt’s capital Cairo, a centre of Sunni Islam thought which was founded in around AD970 and includes a university and a mosque.
‘Al-Azhar… renews its objection to any act depicting the messengers and prophets of God and the companions of the Prophet (Mohammad), peace be upon him,’ it announced in a statement.
The fatwa added that the depictions ‘provoke the feelings of believers… and are forbidden in Islam and a clear violation of Islamic law’.
The film also stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson and will premiere in the U.S. on March 28.
Depictions of the Prophet Mohammad in European and North American media have repeatedly sparked deadly protests in Islamic countries over the last decade, fanning cultural tensions with the West.
The worst riots were triggered after the Prophet Mohammad was depicted in a Danish newspaper in 2006. It sparked protests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in which at least 50 people died.
A spokesman for Paramount Pictures said: ‘Censors for Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) officially confirmed this week that the film will not release in their countries.
‘The official statement they offered in confirming this news is because “it contradicts the teachings of Islam”,’ the representative said, adding the studio expected a similar ban in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait.
Noah, whose trailer depicts Crowe wielding an axe and computer-animated geysers swamping an army of sinners hoping to board his ark, has also stoked religious controversy at home.
Stars: Russell Crowe as Noah with Jennifer Connelly, who plays his wife Naameh and won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her appearance alongside Crowe in A Beautiful Mind.
Last year angry reactions at test screenings reportedly stoked tensions between the studio and director Darren Oronofsky.
Perhaps wisely the filming took place nowhere near the Middle East, instead being carried out in New York State and in Southern Iceland.
Harry Potter star Emma Watson plays the adopted daughter of the prophet, while screen legend Anthony Hopkins stars as his sagely grandfather.
Jennifer Connelly will play Naameh, Noah’s wife. She won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her appearance alongside Crowe in A Beautiful Mind (2001).
The title role was reportedly offered to Michael Fassbender and Christian Bale – both of whom declined.
Jerry A. Johnson, president of a conservative National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) group, said last month he wanted to ‘make sure everyone who sees this impactful film knows this is an imaginative interpretation of Scripture, and not literal.’
Paramount responded by agreeing to issue a disclaimer on advertising for the film.
‘While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide,’ it reads.
The film is not the first to stoke controversy among Muslims.
Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, showing Jesus’s crucifixion, was widely screened in the Arab World despite objections by Muslim clerics.
A 2012, an amateur Youtube video deriding the Prophet Mohammad which was produced in California stoked protests throughout the region, and may have contributed to a deadly militant raid in Libya which killed the U.S. ambassador and three other American staff.
