Mosque tour

[qatarperegrine]

This morning about two dozen CMU-Q employees had a tour of two local mosques, followed by a traditional Qatari meal. It was one of the coolest things I've done since I got to Doha. My pictures are here.

Comments

[roach2600.livejournal.com]

I really wish I had a chance to do this - this is the thing I most wanted on our spring break trip (besides meeting the CMU-Q students!)

It's interesting comparing the transliterated Arabic-in-Roman-letters and the Arabic. For example, on the modern-prayer-time-display, when the English says "Fajr" the Arabic says "alfajr".

Very, very interesting pictures - thanks!

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Arabic likes the definite article. :-)

The one that got me was al-maghrib. I never, ever notice the meem in the lam-meem ligature.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and the women there pointed out that a lot of mosques in the States do tours now, too. Try the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.

[seetarkrun.livejournal.com]

Separate entrances for women and men... surreal.

Beautiful pictures.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Oddly, it doesn't seem that surreal anymore. :-) Maybe it comes from learning about some of the pros of sex segregation as well as the cons....

[materjibrail.livejournal.com]

Back in England in the 60s I felt strongly that high schools worked better for girls if they were girls only. None of the dumbing down in front of boys in case they won't date you, or spending all day thinking about relationships. High School wasn't a dating service. Now whether boys did better in single sex schools I don't want to think about. (I taught in both, but of course I am a woman and that changes the dynamic in both.) I didn't find this as true in college level teaching in California in the 90s. What changed? The role of women? The age of the students? Me?

[qatar.livejournal.com]

This came up in conversation after the mosque tour. One of our faculty (non-Muslim, to my knowledge; also not originally American) was talking about research that women do better in the sciences if they're in single-sex high schools.