A New Beginning
It was exactly one year before the abject, world-shaking September 11 attacks of Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in September 2000, when I stumbled over a large advertisement in one of our professional journals which told me that the new Faculty of Dentistry at Kuwait University was seeking applicants for academic positions. I have to admit here that I had never ever considered moving to an Islamic country, in particular not working there. But that was entirely due to lack of information at that time. What Islam meant was not clear to me at all. I was not even interested very much. A quick check on the internet told me that this was a project mainly engaging well-known international academicians, most of them from Scandinavian countries, with a quite good record of publications. So the question came to my mind, would I fit in that environment? I read Kuwait was the hottest place in the world. But a dear friend who had been traveling in the Middle East...