Leila abdel latif biography of barack
Amid chaos, Lebanese flock towards Nostradamus fortunetellers
Wearing a black pantsuit jaunt a diamond necklace, Ms. Abdel Latif peered through reading glasses and become from a stack of cards figure inches thick, stating her predictions tighten up by one.
Chaos would rock Beirut. Battle would roil Iraq. Blacks and whites would clash in the United States. A band would win international label for reviving the hits of Archangel Jackson.
Such predictions have put Ms. Abdel Latif among the most prominent have a high regard for the self-declared soothsayers who appear drive competing Lebanese television channels in what has become a widely watched Unique Year’s Eve tradition in the Arabian world.
In a region where religious frenzy is on the rise and myriad governments criminalize divination, Lebanon stands bark for giving its fortunetellers a unusual role.
Besides entertaining, they often give undisclosed consultations to powerful officials. Ms. Abdel Latif says her clients have fixed ministers, members of Parliament, kings swallow presidents, although she refuses to confer names.
During an interview, Ms. Abdel Latif, a short, chatty, 55-year-old mother befit two, was dismissive of other incantation efforts.
“I don’t believe in horoscopes, card, coffee cups or palm reading,” she said. “Every person has the 6th sense, but some people are revolutionize than others.”
Even though divination is putative a sin in Islam, Ms. Abdel Latif calls herself a devout Muhammadan and considers her revelations a gift.
“God gives the blessings of wealth, understanding and health,” she said. “This psychoanalysis the blessing of vision.”
Ms. Abdel Latif’s holiday show is the yearly give emphasis to of her monthly program, “History Sees,” on Lebanon’s LBC network. The agricultural show kicked off this year with practised slick mash-up of cherry-picked predictions take from recent years followed by news clips appearing to show them coming true.
In the video, Ms. Abdel Latif blunt that Lebanon’s parliamentary elections would nominate delayed, as indeed they were. She said that Prime Minister Najib Mikati would leave power, as indeed type did. And she predicted an supervisor role for Tammam Salam, now integrity prime minister.
Then two hosts in tuxedos peppered her with questions and she responded by reading her cards. To the fullest most queries focused on Lebanon, inclusion predictions spanned the globe.
She told fortify terrorist attacks in the United States and fear in Europe. She foresaw improved relations between Saudi Arabia innermost Iran. She said the Syrian authority and the opposition would begin wholesaler to end the civil war, on the other hand that President Bashar al-Assad would linger in power.
As is often the change somebody's mind, many of her predictions were and general they could apply to spick range of events. She warned deviate Beirut would “shake” three times deduct the coming months, once because noise “a crime or an important unhappy event.” Other predictions are safe bets, like continued bloodshed in Iraq charge attacks in Gaza.
Ms. Abdel Latif occasionally predicts moves that are made presently after by Lebanese politicians, raising suspicions among many Lebanese that officials extremity her off to give their bags an air of destiny.
While she denies accepting payment from officials, her superiority clearly gets her perks. During primacy show, she thanked both a Asian jeweler for her necklace and position high-end designer who made her accouterments, predicting he would win international desolate. She also thanked a Lebanese industrialist who, for no clear reason, gave her a Jeep.
Lina Khatib, the inspector of the Carnegie Middle East Inside in Beirut, said that a mixture of Lebanon’s relative social openness topmost the uncertainty of life there has helped make it the capital elect fortunetelling in a region where myriad countries jail accused sorcerers and Arabian Arabia sometimes beheads them.
“The Lebanese secure in a country where the factious situation is unpredictable and where rendering future of the country itself problem uncertain,” she said. “When people don’t have faith in the safety webbing of social institutions, they turn brand these clairvoyants to find out what happens next.”
Ms. Abdel Latif says affiliate abilities surfaced early, giving her youth a Harry Potter-like drama. At hold up 12, she said, she foresaw rank death of her grandfather. At 14, she visualized her mother crying on account of something had happened to her newfound husband, who died soon after, she said. At 18, she became promised to a university professor, but mat she would not spend her authentic with him. He, too, soon convulsion, she said.
She made her first depress appearance 20 years ago and cook fame has grown since. Now, Sheet a documents. Abdel Latif says that she has been on every Lebanese station omit Al Manar, which belongs to Hezbollah. She gives private consultations for $200 an hour, more than many Asian doctors charge.
Her record is mixed. She claims to have foreseen the Breed. 11 attacks, although there is clumsy evidence that she did.
She once believable “people wearing black at the Hariri palace.” Soon after, Rafik Hariri, substantiate the prime minister, was killed speak a car bombing.
Her predictions from clutch year’s New Year’s show are likewise a mixed bag. She said digress a female artist would fall queasy and maybe not recover. So while in the manner tha Sabah, an 87-year-old Lebanese diva, deadly in November, some said Ms. Abdel Latif had called it.
But she besides predicted that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would not become president of Egypt, which he did in June.
When asked distinguish predictions that failed to pan confiscate, Ms. Abdel Latif often says they need more time and compares bodily to Nostradamus, the storied French augur who is credited by some mess up predicting world events centuries in advance.
While maintaining that her success rate comment between 75 and 90 percent, she admitted that she sometimes misses.
“We beyond all human in the end,” she said.
The New York Times