A Letter from Qatar
Georgetown University Professor and MID advisor Fr. Leo Lefebure writes from Qatar, where he is teaching on the campus of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. It opened three years ago and will eventually become a full, four-year campus with complete undergraduate education.
September 24, 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
My initial time in Doha consisted of a series of exercises in disorientation/orientation, beginning with very basic questions like: why are the light switches for the kitchen all located in the living room? I had to learn that the electrical switches that I first tried in the kitchen are for the dishwasher and the washing machine; not one switch for lights in the kitchen can be found in the kitchen (don’t ask me why). Over the course of a month, I have become much more accustomed to the basics of life in Doha, even though it remains obviously very different from anything I have ever experienced before. I now have a sense of the rules of the road in entering and exiting roundabouts (no accidents so far, al hamdu Allah—thanks be to God).
The students are interested in learning about other religions but, with a few exceptions, most of them have little or no knowledge of other religious traditions. In my freshmen course, “The Problem of God,” we had a lively debate over whether Hinduism is polytheistic or monotheistic. One young man (who I believe is from an Indian family) insisted that the Hindu Trinity consists of three Gods, only to be sharply rebutted by a young woman (also most likely from an Indian family) who argued strenuously that Hinduism is monotheistic. On the next class day she brought in a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, read it in Sanskrit, and translated it, insisting that Krishna (Vishnu) is the one God, the only one. I thought it was great for the Muslim students to hear the debate.
The young people I teach for the most part are from very conservative Muslim backgrounds. Anything like historical critical biblical scholarship is very foreign to them. They find it strange that the Book of Genesis has two creation stories one after the other. My sense is that they can accept historical critical scholarship for the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but they would be appalled by subjecting the Qur’an to historical critical investigation. The exploration of Jewish and Christian and Buddhist perspectives seems to be a real expansion of their horizons. I have a number of students from the Al-Thani family, a couple are in my seminar on Religion and Violence, and about 5 or 6 in my freshman course, The Problem of God. The Al-Thani family has ruled Qatar since the 19th century.
One day in the seminar on Religion and Violence we discussed various organizations in the interreligious dialogue movement who are working for peaceful resolutions of conflicts around the world. The students were eager to hear of Muslim participation, and the young women asked about the role of women in the movement. When I described the nascent relationship of Georgetown University to the new joint-venture doctoral program in Indonesia, involving a Protestant Christian university, a Muslim university, and a secular national university with a strong reputation in the social sciences, one young woman immediately asked, “Can we organize a trip to go there?” There are funds available for service-learning trips for our students, and so this might be possible at some point.
Then a young man proclaimed that he wanted to learn more about Christianity; I asked what in particular; and he replied: “The Trinity, and don’t use the word ‘mystery.’” So I launched into a shorter version of the course, “The Doctrine of God” that I used to teach to first-year M.Div. students at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago, complete with Arius and the Council of Nicea and homoousios. In the lively exchange that followed, it came out that the young man had a number of misconceptions about early Christian history. Like all of us, the students here have many limitations, but their eagerness to learn is invigorating. Here in Doha, the students really do seem to want to learn. Where it will all go is for God to foresee. Our dean is launching a history project on this venture, thinking that our presence in Doha, along with other American universities, is of historic importance in the role of universities around the world. What does it mean to offer a Georgetown education not only in Washington, DC but in Doha, Qatar, and who knows where next (we have an office in Shanghai checking out the possibilities).
Warmest regards,
Leo
Dear Family and Friends,
My initial time in Doha consisted of a series of exercises in disorientation/orientation, beginning with very basic questions like: why are the light switches for the kitchen all located in the living room? I had to learn that the electrical switches that I first tried in the kitchen are for the dishwasher and the washing machine; not one switch for lights in the kitchen can be found in the kitchen (don’t ask me why). Over the course of a month, I have become much more accustomed to the basics of life in Doha, even though it remains obviously very different from anything I have ever experienced before. I now have a sense of the rules of the road in entering and exiting roundabouts (no accidents so far, al hamdu Allah—thanks be to God).
The students are interested in learning about other religions but, with a few exceptions, most of them have little or no knowledge of other religious traditions. In my freshmen course, “The Problem of God,” we had a lively debate over whether Hinduism is polytheistic or monotheistic. One young man (who I believe is from an Indian family) insisted that the Hindu Trinity consists of three Gods, only to be sharply rebutted by a young woman (also most likely from an Indian family) who argued strenuously that Hinduism is monotheistic. On the next class day she brought in a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, read it in Sanskrit, and translated it, insisting that Krishna (Vishnu) is the one God, the only one. I thought it was great for the Muslim students to hear the debate.
The young people I teach for the most part are from very conservative Muslim backgrounds. Anything like historical critical biblical scholarship is very foreign to them. They find it strange that the Book of Genesis has two creation stories one after the other. My sense is that they can accept historical critical scholarship for the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but they would be appalled by subjecting the Qur’an to historical critical investigation. The exploration of Jewish and Christian and Buddhist perspectives seems to be a real expansion of their horizons. I have a number of students from the Al-Thani family, a couple are in my seminar on Religion and Violence, and about 5 or 6 in my freshman course, The Problem of God. The Al-Thani family has ruled Qatar since the 19th century.
One day in the seminar on Religion and Violence we discussed various organizations in the interreligious dialogue movement who are working for peaceful resolutions of conflicts around the world. The students were eager to hear of Muslim participation, and the young women asked about the role of women in the movement. When I described the nascent relationship of Georgetown University to the new joint-venture doctoral program in Indonesia, involving a Protestant Christian university, a Muslim university, and a secular national university with a strong reputation in the social sciences, one young woman immediately asked, “Can we organize a trip to go there?” There are funds available for service-learning trips for our students, and so this might be possible at some point.
Then a young man proclaimed that he wanted to learn more about Christianity; I asked what in particular; and he replied: “The Trinity, and don’t use the word ‘mystery.’” So I launched into a shorter version of the course, “The Doctrine of God” that I used to teach to first-year M.Div. students at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago, complete with Arius and the Council of Nicea and homoousios. In the lively exchange that followed, it came out that the young man had a number of misconceptions about early Christian history. Like all of us, the students here have many limitations, but their eagerness to learn is invigorating. Here in Doha, the students really do seem to want to learn. Where it will all go is for God to foresee. Our dean is launching a history project on this venture, thinking that our presence in Doha, along with other American universities, is of historic importance in the role of universities around the world. What does it mean to offer a Georgetown education not only in Washington, DC but in Doha, Qatar, and who knows where next (we have an office in Shanghai checking out the possibilities).
Warmest regards,
Leo
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Fr. Leo Lefebure is the Matteo Ricci, SJ, Professor of Theology at Georgetown University. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies and also of the new Center for Religious Understanding, Acceptance, and Tolerance. He serves as an advisor to the Board of Directors of MID and participated in the first two Gethsemani Encounters.