{"id":86986,"date":"2020-07-27T10:07:19","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T16:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=86986"},"modified":"2020-07-30T22:34:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T04:34:03","slug":"revision-2-10-the-epitome-of-pre-islamic-arabian-generosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/07\/revision-2-10-the-epitome-of-pre-islamic-arabian-generosity.html","title":{"rendered":"Revision 2.10 “The epitome of pre-Islamic Arabian generosity”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In the Arabian Peninsula, with camels\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons photo by Mohammad Nowfal)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Closely related to the obligations felt by a host toward his guests is the notion of generosity, which was one of the leading vir\u00adtues of a pre-Islamic Arabian hero. And, of all those heroes, there\u2019s one whose name became virtually synonymous in subsequent Arab tradition with the idea of generosity\u2014Hatim of Tayyi. He is once reputed to have said to his wife Mawiyya,<\/span><\/p>\n

The guest\u2019s slave am I, it\u2019s true, as long as he stays with me, \/\u00a0Although in my nature otherwise no trait of the slave is shown.<\/strong>[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Once again, a story will give a clearer idea of the early Arabian ideal of generosity.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s told that Hatim\u2019s mother, when she was pregnant with him, dreamed that someone asked her, \u201cWhich would you prefer\u2014a generous son named Hatim, or ten sons like those of other people, lions in the hour of battle, brave young men, strong limbed?\u201d Attractive as the second choice was\u2014what pre-Islamic mother wouldn\u2019t have been pleased with ten heroic warrior sons?\u2014she answered without hesitation that she would prefer the generous son, Hatim. And she received what she desired. As Hatim grew up, he developed the habit of taking his food and going out into the roads, looking for travellers to share his food. If he found someone he could share with, he would eat. If he didn\u2019t, he would throw his food away and fast instead.[2]<\/span><\/p>\n

Hatim\u2019s father (who seems not to have been consulted about the kind of son he <\/em>wanted) was displeased with this wasteful behavior. After all, food didn\u2019t exactly grow on trees in the Arabian desert. So, as some kind of cure, he gave Hatim a slave girl, a mare, and a foal and sent him out into the middle of nowhere to herd the family camels.<\/span><\/p>\n

On reaching the place where he was supposed to pasture the camels\u2014who were, as one can imagine, a large portion of any well-to-do desert Arab\u2019s treasure\u2014Hatim went out, as was his habit, to find somebody with whom to share his food. But, search as he might, he could find nobody. Finally, off in the distance, he spotted a party of riders coming toward him. He hurried out to meet them, and it turned out that the riders were three extremely famous Arabian poets, riding together to the court of Hira.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYoung man!\u201d they called out. \u201cDo you have anything that we can eat?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you ask me a question like that,\u201d Hatim replied, \u201cwhen you see all these camels I have?\u201d And he slaughtered three camels for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have gone to such trouble,\u201d said one of the trav\u00adelling poets. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really need anything more than a little milk. Even if you felt yourself obliged to give us more than that, a single young she-camel would have been plenty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d said Hatim, \u201cI knew that well enough. But, looking at you, I noticed that you were dressed in different fashions and that you look unrelated, so I figured that you must be from three differ\u00adent places. And I wanted to do something for you that would be so striking that you would each mention it when you got back to your home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At that, the poets complied with his wishes, and each recited a verse in praise of Hatim\u2019s generosity. This might have been expected to please him, but it didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do something kind for you, but now, with your verses, you\u2019ve been more generous with me than I was with you. I\u2019m in your debt, and that isn\u2019t what I had in mind. I swear a sol\u00ademn oath to God that I\u2019ll hamstring every camel in the herd unless you step forward and divide the entire herd among your\u00adselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Having heard this solemn oath, and knowing full well that\u2014as we\u2019ve learned\u2014Hatim was honor- bound to fulfill it, the three poets did indeed divide the herd up among themselves. Each of the three received ninety-nine camels. (Making a neat total of three hundred camels in the original herd, when the three that Hatim had slaughtered are figured in. A bit too neat, perhaps, but old stories are often like this.) Then they proceeded on to Hira.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not long after this, Hatim\u2019s father began to overhear disquiet\u00ading rumors about his camel herd and came to investigate. What he saw\u2014or, rather, what he didn\u2019t see\u2014infuriated him. \u201cWhere . . . are . . . the . . .\u00a0camels?\u201d <\/em>he asked, measuring his words carefully and struggling to maintain self-control.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cO my father,\u201d Hatim replied brightly, \u201cby means of those cam\u00adels I have conferred upon you everlasting fame and honor. That fame and honor will stick to you always, just like the ring of the ringdove sticks to its neck, and men will always be hearing some verse or other of poetry in which our family is praised. This is your reward for the camels!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps it was a joke. Perhaps, the father thought, perhaps I just didn\u2019t hear it quite right. \u201cDid you actually do with my camels what I just heard you say you did?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy God,\u201d said the father, \u201cI will never live with you again.\u201d[2]<\/span><\/p>\n

So Hatim\u2019s father took his family and moved away, and Hatim was left in the desert with his slave girl and his mare and the mare\u2019s foal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, <\/em>87.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] The late Hugh Nibley loved to tell a precisely parallel ancient story, and a very touching one, about the patriarch Abraham, who was very much a nomadic bedouin shaykh.\u00a0 It is recorded in the last few minutes of the beautifully produced video The\u00a0Faith of an Observer: Conversations with Hugh Nibley<\/em>, which is available at\u00a0https:\/\/deseretbook.com\/p\/faith-observer-conversations-hugh-nibley-covenant-communications-14999 and also accessible online in rather blurry form at\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eYPVZvRXpIY.<\/p>\n

[3] As we\u2019ll discuss below, swearing \u201cby God\u201d is not only permissible among devout Muslims, it is essentially obligatory.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Breckenridge, Colorado<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Closely related to the obligations felt by a host toward his guests is the notion of generosity, which was one of the leading vir\u00adtues of a pre-Islamic Arabian hero. And, of all those heroes, there\u2019s one whose name became virtually synonymous in subsequent Arab tradition with the idea of generosity\u2014Hatim of Tayyi. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[195,7539,6690,13861,5595,14128,14134,14119,14137,14131,13987,4054,14020,2812,14059,14122,14125],"class_list":["post-86986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arab","tag-arabia","tag-bedouin","tag-beduin","tag-generosity","tag-generous","tag-guest","tag-hatim","tag-hospitality","tag-host","tag-jahiliyya","tag-poem","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-quraysh","tag-tayyi","tag-tai"],"yoast_head":"\nRevision 2.10 "The epitome of pre-Islamic Arabian generosity"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Closely related to the obligations felt by a host toward his guests is the notion of generosity, which was one of the leading vir\u00adtues of a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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