Six Days in Doha with Chris

The Riding a Camel Pic

 

What if you had just a few days in a Middle Eastern country - where traffic buzzes the city like bees searching for a hive, winter means beach sun and flowers, strange things circle the sky and jumping off a pile of sand into another pile of sand is a national pastime?

 

a guy (it's always a guy), a parachute-like thing, a great big, round fan

 

Oh sure, you'd hang with your way cool 'rents

 

working out at the Singing Dunes

not hot, windy or dry enough for music this trip

great for running and climbing

 

top it off with a cold one

at the Inland Sea

 

You'd tour a mosque and cultural center, study customs and religion, watch as a muezzin in traditional attire stands before a microphone, recites a beautiful, inspiring Adhan, call to prayer.  You'd jog a resort, wander a beach, jump into a dune

 

Wheeeeee!

 

Wheeee times three!

 

You'd view artifacts from all over the Middle East at the Museum of Islamic Art and walk the length and breadth of the fantastic Museum park.  Where there are outstanding views of West Bay, hills, a strange obelisk like thing, and cool, glittering water.  You'd ride a dhow around Doha's fabulous West Bay...

 

 

...drink sweet hospitality tea, eat shwarma, hummus, pita, kofta, babaganoush, awesome delicious rice.  You'd absorb the unique smells, textures and flavors (fats, sugars, carbs) and you'd not be sorry.  Not one tiny, little bit.

 

 

 

Not sorry

 

Because later - of course - you'd drink sweet Herbalife tea and sweat it all out at the gym.

 

Plus, there's the Inland Sea where you'd (watch Mom) swim under a gleaming sun in the warm appearing, but deceptively cold Gulf spanning the distance between Qatar and Saudi Arabia...

 

blue, beautiful

Inland Sea in January 2014

 

...dune bashing and sand golf (for Mary Ann and Gary)

 

This is the fairway

 

This is the sand trap

Yes, the sand course has a sand trap

aka "bunker" 

 

falcons, giant pearls, massive teapots

 

 

 

Qatari night life, camel races, unmarked desert bound Catholic church - and treasures to be found at the updated-to-look-old, modern, antique souq.

 

at the souq

 

Lucky, happy people - to get a great, marvelous, wondrous, whirlwind, fantastic six days in Doha with our beautiful, smart, fantastic son!

 

Video snippets from one wondrous Doha day, chosen by the camera

Question: "Is the Call to Prayer like a Siren?"

asked Cute Ken With Dimples, friend of the original Darling Dimples:

 

Answer:

Yes.  Sort of.  In that Adhan (Call to Prayer) is broadcast through speakers set high above the city to assure everyone hears and has opportunity to react in an appropriate manner.

 

And No.  In that a siren is discordant and designed to annoy, while Adhan is a warm, melodious, inviting sound.  Listen for yourself:

 

Adhan for Maghrib (evening prayers) near Bob's job site (ie, that skyline full of cranes)

 

This is what you're hearing:

 

Allahu Akhbar (4 times)                                                   Allah is Most Great

Ash-had an la ilaha ill-Allah (2 times)                             I bear witness that there is none
                                                                                              worthy of being worshipped except Allah

Ash hadu anna Muhammad ar-Rasoolullah (2 times)      I bear witness that Muhammad is the
                                                                                             Apostle of Allah

Hayya 'alas-Salah (2 times)                                              Come to prayer

Hayya 'alal-falah (2 times)                                                Come to success

Allahu Akhbar (2 times)                                                    Allah is Most Great

La ilaha illallah                                                                  There is no deity except Allah

 

With one exception, this is the very Adhan recited throughout the world 5 times every day: before dawn (Fajr), at noon (Dhuhr), afternoon (Asr), sunset (Maghrib) and nightfall (Isha).  Because prayer times are determined by the sun and not by the clock, the moment of prayer changes from day to day, location to location.

 

The exception:

 

This phrase is added after "Hayya 'alal-falah" (Come to success) in the first Adhan (which can occur as early as 3am):

 

As-salatu khairum minannaum (2 times)                             Prayer is better than sleep

 

Once upon a time, the muezzin climbed into the top of the minaret to complete the Adhan.  Today, he stands at a microphone inside the mosque to perform this sacred duty. His voice is broadcast to the community via speakers set high in the minaret.

 

Mshiereb Minaret at night

 

Minaret at the Pearl's mosque - hmmm

 

Gold mosque and minaret at Katara

 

There's a second call that occurs a short time after the first: the Iqamah.  Directed toward faithful inside the mosque, the Iqamah is recited quickly and with less intonation, and includes this line after "Hayya 'alal-falah" (Come to success):

 

Qad Qama Tis-salah                                                              Stand for Prayer

 

The Adhan isn't limited to the muezzin or the minaret.  I've heard it broadcast inside the mall, through my tv, coming out of a group standing on a boat, from a man alone under a tree.

 

"…the Prophet said,…whenever you want to pronounce (Adhan) for the prayer, raise your voice in doing so, for whoever hears the (Adhan), whether a human being, a jinn or any other creature, will be witness for you on the Day of Resurrection…"

http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=85443

 

Prayerful, warm, inviting, sacred. Musical - but not music.  I like it.

Five Favorite Doha Somethings

In honor of the anniversary of Bob's first year in Doha (October 16, although he didn't actually arrive until nearly October 18) here are five of my favorite somethings about the country:

 

The People

 

Family Day at the park

 

It's hard to meet Qataris.  Women cover with niqab.  Locals live in walled compounds, rest in the  mornings, and do what they do in the afternoon, evening and overnight.  Women and men (officially) don't mix so I won't be able to tell you much about the men.

 

But the women?  The few I've met in a personal setting are smart, kind, hard-working, interested and interesting. They work in education, politics, travel and family…and roll their eyes at the Western notion that Men Make Them Cover.  I like them.

 

Seventy years ago Qatar was a vast expanse of sparsely populated land with Bedouins meeting seaside for summer pearl diving and doing the camel and goat raising thing in the winter.  Drinking water was shipped in from Bahrain.  The country's first schools weren't built until the 1950s.  Oil and gas was discovered in 1939 but took ten years to produce since the British were busy with WWII.  Even then, the people didn't share in the wealth until Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani came to power in 1995.

 

That's not even twenty years ago! Qatar hasn't had time to produce its own experienced architects, engineers, contractors, lawyers…there are no local professional mentors and internships, as we (ie, Americans) know them.  Rules are inconsistent because Qataris are still figuring out what works.  Some say that the under-30 generation has been handed too much too soon too fast - and that subbing out the lowest level jobs (ie, starting their kids out at the top of the food chain) hurts the country in the long run. 

 

Yet, somehow, in under one generation Qataris have gone from this:

 

my photo taken of a museum video, early pearl diving and fishing in Doha

 

to this:

 

West Bay from the Pearl's beach today

 

I think that's pretty amazing.

 

Call to Prayer

 

There's a saying: the family that prays together stays together. What about a whole country of people worshipping side by side?

 

Once upon a time the muezzin climbed to the top of the minaret to announce prayer. Today, a select few who've learned the recitation rules called Tajweed intone from a microphone inside the mosque, broadcast to the city through speakers in the minaret.  Sometimes individuals recite from boats, sitting cross-legged in a park, standing alone on a street.  Prayer times are determined by the sun and moon, but the moment the muezzin steps up or the individual begins varies slightly.  The result is a sonorous, peaceful sort of musical round that coats the city five times a day.  I always stop to listen.

 

minaret from inside the Grand Mosque

 

West Bay at Night

 

No worries over the light bill here.  Empty buildings and those under construction are lit too. It's doggone purty.

 

West Bay at night via Cindi's little camera

 

Corniche

 

A green-lined boardwalk that circles the water overlooking lighthouse Fanar, funky cool Islamic Museum, step pyramid Sheraton Hotel and Palm Tree Island with its one lonely Eucalyptus.  Where dates hang in heavy bunches from palm trees and dhows wait for passengers.  It's a scenic, popular, marked 6000-meter run/walk that spans West Bay and leads into downtown.  Ladies in abaya wearing red adidas stroll alongside Europeans in shorts and tank tops.  Children ride bikes, pull wagons and toss birdseed for flocks of pigeons.  Awesome.

 

Plus, if you park close to the Sheraton, there's free internet.  :)

 

 

Winter

 

While folks in my homeland (Missouri, USA) toss ice-melt on the driveway, crank up the heater and haul out the snow shovel, we're waking up to Spring breezes, California beach sun and endless (constantly tended) rows of flowers.  Survive July and August - and, okay, September…and, yeah, most of October…winter is the payoff.

 

But the best thing about Doha in the Winter?  When these two endure the two day journey (again, soon!) to give me a holiday squeeze:

 

Christmas 2011 in Doha wit' me gurls: happiness redux very soon!

The Grand Mosque and Me

Head scarf pic; but don't freak out (Mom)!  Hijab required when inside a mosque.

 

 

High on a hill overlooking Doha's West Bay is Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab Mosque, the State Mosque of Qatar.  It's a grand building with bubbling half-moons and a minaret:

 

(pic from dohanews.com)

 

Bob and I drive past the mosque every day on our way to and from Bob's job site.

 

I'd been told I couldn't go in, as I am a woman AND a non-Muslim.  So I didn't try.  Because I want to be respectful - and I just don't want to get into that kind of trouble here.

 

While I was napping, the rules changed.  Lucky for me:

 

It says "madkhool al nissaa'" (entrance the ladies).  Reading Arabic is so much easier when the English translation is included.

 

Up the steps…it's a bit unnerving to do this by yourself…

 

To the great, grand entrance just for ladies.

My guide said the mosque is "always open" and crowded on special days, but for regular five-times-a-day prayer most faithful attend neighborhood mosques.

 

Door to the Ladies' Section from the inside.  Doors and gates are important to Middle Eastern/Khaleeji culture and architecture.

 

Three ladies stood behind a counter to one side of the entrance. One (re)draped and (re)tucked my scarf, one checked to see if anyone was using the praying space and the third offered a tour.  My guide was Egyptian, from a tiny Up-Country village.  She wore a modern looking suit and hijab - and was newly pregnant with TRIPLETS thanks to the mysteries of invitro fertilization.  (Nothing to do with the mosque tour, but interesting…that she and her husband made use of this very modern process, and well, that she told me about it at all.)

 

Women's praying space. "You may take pictures," said my guide.  "Because there are no women here now."

 

Ladies pray in a wide carpeted balcony space overlooking the Men's Area.  "Do you ever look down there?" I asked my guide.  She was appalled.  "Of course not."  This is as close as I got since no one answered the phone downstairs (to clear a visit from me).

 

Another peek at the Men's Area.  :) Yes, I'm just that immature.

 

Ladies' ablution (wudhu) space.  Prayer preparation involves a very specific wash, rinse, repeat process: http://www.muslimconverts.com/prayer/how-to-perform-wudhu.htm

 

A place outside the praying area to sit, chat, think.  Muslim ladies are very, very social with one another and generally solicitous to curious hawagas, ie, (female) tourists and strangers.  If you have the nerve to ask, she'll (probably, maybe) answer your questions.  But pictures?  No.

 

Courtyard for gathering, talking, hangin' with the fam before services.

 

I like the "ladies crossing" graphic.

 

Wider angle

 

Empty parking lot, workers at the minaret

 

Interesting, weird, diverse, unique buildings of Doha's West Bay

 

"Come back anytime," said my guide.  "Bring your friends!"  Good thing I have plenty of scarves.