Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

2IO Bcdomn Tribes of the Euphrates, [cji. xxv.
their adherents the prizes made in war, or the
presents they receive from strangers. The young
are more remarkaljle in this way than the older
men ; and Faris, the Shammar chief, who represents
the highest traditions of the past, keeps nothing for
himself either in the way of presents or prizes.
All
goes to his retainers. Much, too, as the Bedouins
love money, they will not accept it, except under
special circumstances, from strangers living under
their tents ;—and this brings us to their great
virtue, their hospitality.
Hospitality to the European mind does not recommend
itself, like justice or mercy, as a natural
virtue. It is rather regarded as what theologians
call a swpernatural one ; that is to say, it would
seem to require something more than the instinct
of ordinary good feehng to
throw open the doors of
one's house to a stranger, to kill one's lamb for
his benefit, and to share one's last loaf with him.
Yet the Bedouins do not so regard it. They look
upon hospitality not merely as a duty imposed by
divine ordinance, but as the primary instinct of a
well-constituted mind. To refuse shelter or food
to a stranger is held to be not merely a wicked
action, an offence against divine or human law,
but the YQYj essence of depravity. A man, thus
acting, could not again win the respect or toleration
of his neighbours.
This, in principle, is the same in
all Arab tribes, Bedouin or not ;
but the particular
laws and obligations of hospitality among them