Nouhad Dammous, editor-in-chief of Hospitality News Middle East, delves into the heart of hospitality and its religious significance.
Hospitality is a word pregnant with meaning. At its simplest level, it is regarded as a virtue in all three monotheistic religions and has been a central feature of Islamic cultures with precedents rooted in both Byzantine and Sasanian traditions. A powerful motif in all three religions, Abraham inspired a theology of hospitality often echoed in Jewish, Christian and Islamic literature and used as a framework for interreligious dialogue.
Islam holds hospitality as a virtue that lies at the very basis of the Islamic ethical system, a concept rooted in the pre-Islamic Bedouin virtues of welcome and generosity in the harsh desert environment dayafa. The Prophet is reported to have said, “There is no good in the one who is not hospitable.”
I do think then, that a life without good food would be at least as impoverished as life without good art, and that culinary arts should indeed take its place alongside the other arts. But its value lies more in its daily practice than in the exceptional achievements of its finest practitioners. It is an art of the everyday.
We ourselves are all guests of God’s hospitality and have an obligation to show hospitality to others. Thus, our hospitality to others is a sign of our love for God, as God is always present when guests are present at the table.
We cannot ignore the fact that when we say the word “God,” we say something very powerful; the word itself moves us and demands that we are open to self-reflection. In peaceful societies, words matter not because lives are at stake but because how we speak of our faith within our own communities and in public says something about what we value and the kind of society to which we aspire — a task that should both humble and inspire us.
Generosity (karam) is part of hospitality and consists first and foremost in providing food. In its premodern and pre-industrial Arabian context, hospitality is regarded as something fundamental to the desert environment and nomadic wanderings.
Curiously the words “strange” (gharib) and “stranger” (ajnabi) are both absent from the Qur’an. While ajnabi today may mean a foreigner — that is, one who belongs to a different nationality — this was not a known category in medieval Islam. All of this contrasts, with the concept of the stranger in Classical Antiquity, where the stranger was often seen as a problem. However ambiguous the concept of stranger and the status of the stranger was in the Muslim world, the attitude to strangers was not xenophobic.
Hospitality is a right rather than a gift, and the duty to supply it is a duty of God.
Hospitality in Islam & Christianity
Nouhad Dammous, editor-in-chief of Hospitality News Middle East, delves into the heart of hospitality and its religious significance.
Hospitality is a word pregnant with meaning. At its simplest level, it is regarded as a virtue in all three monotheistic religions and has been a central feature of Islamic cultures with precedents rooted in both Byzantine and Sasanian traditions. A powerful motif in all three religions, Abraham inspired a theology of hospitality often echoed in Jewish, Christian and Islamic literature and used as a framework for interreligious dialogue.
Islam holds hospitality as a virtue that lies at the very basis of the Islamic ethical system, a concept rooted in the pre-Islamic Bedouin virtues of welcome and generosity in the harsh desert environment dayafa. The Prophet is reported to have said, “There is no good in the one who is not hospitable.”
I do think then, that a life without good food would be at least as impoverished as life without good art, and that culinary arts should indeed take its place alongside the other arts. But its value lies more in its daily practice than in the exceptional achievements of its finest practitioners. It is an art of the everyday.
We ourselves are all guests of God’s hospitality and have an obligation to show hospitality to others. Thus, our hospitality to others is a sign of our love for God, as God is always present when guests are present at the table.
We cannot ignore the fact that when we say the word “God,” we say something very powerful; the word itself moves us and demands that we are open to self-reflection. In peaceful societies, words matter not because lives are at stake but because how we speak of our faith within our own communities and in public says something about what we value and the kind of society to which we aspire — a task that should both humble and inspire us.
Generosity (karam) is part of hospitality and consists first and foremost in providing food. In its premodern and pre-industrial Arabian context, hospitality is regarded as something fundamental to the desert environment and nomadic wanderings.
Curiously the words “strange” (gharib) and “stranger” (ajnabi) are both absent from the Qur’an. While ajnabi today may mean a foreigner — that is, one who belongs to a different nationality — this was not a known category in medieval Islam. All of this contrasts, with the concept of the stranger in Classical Antiquity, where the stranger was often seen as a problem. However ambiguous the concept of stranger and the status of the stranger was in the Muslim world, the attitude to strangers was not xenophobic.
Hospitality is a right rather than a gift, and the duty to supply it is a duty of God.
Nouhad Dammous
Editor in Chief
Hospitality News Middle-East
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Rita Ghantous
Rita Ghantous is a hospitality aficionado and a passionate writer with over 9 years’ experience in journalism and 5 years experience in the hospitality sector. Her passion for the performance arts and writing, started early. At 10 years old she was praised for her solo performance of the Beatles song “All My Love” accompanied by a guitarist, and was approached by a French talent scout during her school play. However, her love for writing was stronger. Fresh out of school, she became a freelance journalist for Noun Magazine and was awarded the Silver Award Cup for Outstanding Poetry, by The International Library of Poetry (Washington DC). She studied Business Management and earned a Masters degree from Saint Joseph University (USJ), her thesis was published in the Proche-Orient, Études en Management book. She then pursued a career in the hospitality industry but didn’t give up writing, that is why she launched the Four Points by Sheraton Le Verdun Newsletter. Her love for the industry and journalism led her to Hospitality Services - the organizers of the HORECA trade show in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, as well as Salon Du Chocolat, Beirut Cooking Festival, Whisky Live and other regional shows. She is currently the Publications Executive of Hospitality News Middle East, Taste & Flavors and Lebanon Traveler. It is with ultimate devotion for her magazines that she demonstrates her hospitality savoir-faire.