Before I went abroad, I thought I had a fairly good grasp of what it meant to understand differences. I had grown up in diverse spaces, learned the vocabulary of inclusion, and been part of conversations around identity, belief, and ethics. But living in Qatar taught me that understanding differences isn’t just about appreciating culture from a distance or being open-minded in principle—it’s about learning how to live with, alongside, and within differences.
One theme that emerged consistently throughout my time in Doha was the idea of faith as a social force. Not just personal belief, but faith as something that organizes space, time, language, and relationships. Religion in Qatar is not separate from everyday life—it is everyday life. It’s the call to prayer echoing across the city, the clothing people wear, the structure of the weekend, and the way conversations unfold. Even when people aren’t explicitly talking about faith, it’s present in their hospitality, in the pace of the day, and in the values that guide interaction.
Experiencing this up close challenged the quiet assumption I carried with me—that faith is something private, tucked away in sacred spaces or practiced behind closed doors. In Doha, I learned what it means for religion to be public, not in a performative or political sense, but in a way that binds people together and helps shape a collective rhythm.
One of the most vivid examples of this was during Ramadan. I had fasted before, but never in a country where the entire society moved with the rhythm of the fast. There was something profoundly moving about that—about the sense of alignment, of shared purpose. Time seemed to bend around sunset, and suddenly everyone was breaking fast at once—on campus, in homes, at mosques, even in the streets. One night, I was invited to a traditional ghabga—a late-night gathering during Ramadan—and it was there that the meaning of “lived religion” really hit me. We ate together, laughed, and paused for prayer when the time came. There was no division between social and spiritual—it all flowed as one.
From that experience, one of the biggest lessons I’ll carry forward is that religion can be a language of belonging, even if you don’t speak it fluently. You don’t have to share a belief to participate in the rhythm of a community. What matters more is how you show up—with respect, openness, and a willingness to learn. I didn’t feel like an outsider at that gathering; I felt like a guest—welcomed, included, and seen.
Another theme that emerged for me was the difference between performing openness and practicing it. It's one thing to say you value diversity; it's another to practice humility in spaces that aren’t built around your norms or assumptions. Living in Doha meant learning when to ask questions and when to simply observe. It meant realizing that I didn’t need to “understand” every religious or political nuance in order to respect it. That humility—the ability to sit with complexity—was one of the most important things I gained.
It also changed how I engage with differences back home. I used to think of inclusion primarily in terms of representation— who is at the table, who gets a voice. That’s still important, of course. But being in Qatar helped me see that inclusion also means asking whose rhythms are we following? Who decides the pace, the language, the expectations? It made me more attuned to the subtle ways power and belonging operate—not just through laws or systems, but through social norms, calendars, and assumptions about what is “normal.”
Internationally, this experience made me more cautious about applying Western frameworks too quickly to non-Western contexts. I had always learned about the separation of religion and state as a kind of ideal, as something to strive for. But in Qatar, I saw a different model: one in which religion and governance are intertwined, not as a means of control, but as a way to root ethics and public life in a shared moral tradition. It doesn’t mean the system is perfect, but it reminded me that there’s more than one way to structure society—and that those differences are worth understanding on their own terms, not just compared to what I’m used to.
More personally, I’ve noticed how this experience has subtly reshaped my habits. I find myself using phrases like inshallah or alhamdulillah—not because I was trying to adopt a different faith tradition, but because those words became part of how people expressed hope, gratitude, and connection. They’re small things, but they reflect something deeper: the way culture seeps into you when you’re paying attention.
Looking back, this experience wasn’t just about learning about religion in Qatar. It was about seeing what it means to live in a place where belief and behavior are intertwined. Where rituals aren’t isolated from real life—they are real life. Where ethics aren’t just discussed in classrooms—they’re practiced around dinner tables, in public spaces, and in how people treat each other during both ordinary days and sacred nights.
This is what I will carry forward: a deeper sensitivity to how people find meaning in the world, and how those meanings are expressed not just in words, but in gestures, rhythms, and shared meals. I’ll remember that understanding differences requires more than curiosity— it requires presence. And that sometimes, the best way to understand another way of life is to sit at the table, share the meal, and listen.
