The Sheikh and Me

(NOTE DEAR READER, THIS ENTRY AND THE FOLLOWING TWO WERE ALL POSTED TODAY.)

On the first day of the TAMAM conference, a young man from Dubai handed me three books from his mentor and friend—an elderly Sheikh, a holy man, of renown, now living in a tent and shepherding his goats in the desert.  He asked that I read the books and tell him what I thought of them the next day. The Sheikh wanted my opinion.

On the next day—having been up late the night before—I had not done my homework.  The young man talked with me and said the Sheikh had called and asked for my report.

Now duty-bound, that night I read as much as I could of the books, noting several positive responses. The Sheikh is truly an accomplished scholar and entrepreneur—well educated and the founder of two women’s universities and a number of businesses.  The books were well and respectfully written. When he refers to a person, he uses “he/she.” One book concerned the Ten Commandments and his premise that we are all Moslems, although some of Christians and Jews have not yet “returned” to the fold; another spoke of the stages of a man’s life and a type of memoir; and the third discussed the first stage of life.  At dinner on the last evening I shared my positive reactions, then began to tell him what I didn’t agree with. He stopped me. The Sheikh told him that if there were anything I disagreed with, he would want to talk with me personally.  He asked that Dr. Monera, the assistant director of the Arab Thought Foundation, make the arrangements.

This morning, Monera called to say that the Sheikh had called her at home and that she was to hear my disagreements and relay them to him.  So I talked some of them through with her and she called him back.

Later in the day, I met the young man in the lobby of our hotel and he had talked with the Sheikh once more after he had heard my criticisms.  Through an interpreter, the young man extended the Sheikh’s invitation for my husband and I to visit him in Dubai.

Why me? she asks. Linda

 

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 at 7:44 am and is filed under Education, Leadership, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.