Sheik Uke-Al-Hilaly
Created: 2007
This ukelele was painted for the 2007 Hula Dreams ukelele exhibition at Carol Ruff (aka Coral Reef)'s Gallery East in Clovelly. It is now in a private collection.
It depicts Sheik Al-Hilaly, at the time the mufti (head imam) for the Muslim community in Australia. He had been much in the news the previous year for his comments in a Ramadan sermon about women's dress and rape:
"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."
Source: AAP / The Age, 2006.