Understanding Qatar’s interfaith dialogue culture: motivations, trends, and challenges

During the last decade, Qatar has set out to sponsor a number of high-profile interfaith dialogue initiatives: from inviting prominent interfaith speakers to Doha, the establishment of the Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID), the opening of several churches, and chairing of the UN Alliance of Civilizations. This paper probes motivations behind and effects of this patronage. In doing so, three major questions are explored. One, what is motivating Qatar’s patronage of interfaith dialogue? Two, who are the main interfaith players inside Qatar and what form does this dialogue take? And three, what are the effects of these initiatives on Doha’s many communities?

UREP cycle: 11

Faculty Mentor(s): Dr. Patrick Laude

Student(s): Asim Koldzo

Deliverables:

The student has attended the MEDIA RELIGION &CULTURE 2012 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE (MRC 2012) ANADOLU UNIVERSITY, held in July 2012, in Eskisehir, Turkey. The student has presented preliminary research findings of the research project “Understanding Qatar’s Interfaith Dialogue Culture: Motivations, Trends, and Challenges”

Funding: $9990

The Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP)