Qatar: Art, Books, Culture, Deserts, Education, Flags, & Go-carting

A is for Art... which you can find at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. This museum goes through the various forms, symbols, and cultures of Islamic Art, beginning in the 7th century (Mohammed's time) until the 18th century and spans countries from Iran, Central Asia, Egypt, Syria, Iran, India, and Turkey. Two favourites: cool war helmets & daggers.

Also, the building's entrance sign seeming partiality toward making the Arabic look larger & more elegant than the English reminded me of what we often see with the Quebec French/English:

B is for books... OK, the Quaran. While wandering around the museum, we noticed a certain shape come up a lot. It was two squares, superimposed to make a symbol with 8 corners (much like the Jewish star of david, except squares instead of triangles). Ie this, in the middle of the museum:

Eric explained to me that, because you can't make an image of Allah, as

Christians might sculpt a cross with Jesus for example, Muslims have adopted other ways to 'beautify'

the icons associated with their religion. This is seen with repeating patterns of shapes (such as the one above) and beautiful caligraphy within the Quaran (right):

C is for culture... which I learned is the reason that many Arabs wear the thawb (ie it is less for religious, and more for cultural, traditional, comfort, reasons). It is mostly warn in the Persian gulf states. Women wear the abaya, which is a traditional form of the hijab. No pictures, but I'm sure if you use wikipedia it can help you. :-)

D is for desert... and playing in it!! Remember, it is always important to deflate your tires before zooming up and over or backing down very steep desert cliffs in a 4 by 4.

E is for Education City, Qatar... ie a huge campus, where, instead of having the buildings such as 'management' or 'poli sci' or 'medicine' you have 'Carnegie Mellon University' and 'Georgetown University School of Foreign Service' and 'Cornell University's Weill Cornell Medical College.' The schools set up their programs in Qatar and any student who graduates from here, gets the same exact degree as students from the home-based school. But, they get the middle-east, extremely multicultural experience. Outside Eric's office hang 39 flags, representing each of the nationalities of the students who are here. And that's out of 161 students... VERY COOL !

(Picture shows about 1/3 of the flags...) Interestingly, though, while sitting in the office this morning, I overhead one of Eric's colleagues on the phone with a student, explaining that, "Good news, we've receive the visas for your mother and sister to come to your graduation... bad news, the visa for your father was denied, because they don't believe that your father is your father. So, if you could get me... bla bla bla documentation..."

F is for flag... the Qatar flag. It hangs in this row next to the American flag to show the partnership between the two countries for education. The twelve triangular shapes represent the 12 different bedouin tribes living in the region before it became they came together as a country. Although Qatar is not an 'emir'ate like Dubai, it is ruled by an emir which means 'king.' No elections here...

And finally, G is for No-Go Go-carting... we had plans to go at 2pm, but unfortunately the place had plans for a women's hours go-carting from 1-4. I guess I got a little taste of what life is regularly like here, and free of charge!