Back to Hatem Al-Tai
our article on the generosity of hatem al-tai has provoked some controversy and revealed aspects that need to be considered. there is no doubt that the concept of generosity is relative, like anything, and varies from region to region. in the desert, for example, generosity is entirely related to providing guests with food. a passerby or a poor person who is hungry usually does not look for a person who is welcoming, smiles at him and opens his house to sleep in. he searches for those who provides him with food and then praises him for his generosity. however, the concept of generosity in areas that do not suffer from food scarcity varies. it often is related to generosity in giving his time, effort and knowledge to others, and not refraining from giving advice to those who need it, including the poor and the rich. a friend told me about a poetry seminar that was held in a gulf city a while ago. one of the poets exaggerated when praising a senior official by saying his generosity exceeded that of hatem al-tai. this aroused the anger of some of the audience, perhaps out of tribal grounds, and silenced the poet. a reader also told me that the iranians, influenced by the arabs, their poems and their history, describe the generous as “al-tai”, perhaps because their culture has no other equivalent person in generosity. who is hatim al-tai? he is an arab poet and prince of altai tribe. he died half a century before hijra year. he was a christian who was known for his generosity and the quality of his poetry. it is said he obtained the trait of generosity from his mother and lived most of his life in an area close to hail, north of saudi arabia. his generosity went so far that his father abandoned him. his wife narrated a story about a year of drought they had endured such that she used to entertain their son and daughter until they fell asleep. hatem was aware that she was starving and tried to entertain her by talking to her so that she would also sleep. sensing that he was also tired of starvation, she pretended to be asleep so that he would stop talking and would sleep as well. she also said a woman had approached hatem at the time complaining that her children were shouting out of hunger. he asked his wife to offer them food. this surprised the wife and she asked him how he could do so when their son and daughter are suffering from hunger. he promised to offer food for all and asked her to wake them up. hatem then slaughtered his horse, grilled the meat and asked everybody to be satisfied with food. he did not feel happy because other people are hungry, so he visited every home and invited all to share the food. but he remained starving. the writer and politician ghazi al-qosaibi once wrote that generosity was invented by arabs as a social security from hunger when traveling in the desert. they upheld that word and gave it sanctity so that people would have a chance to seek generosity when travelling; thus the generous people will be satisfied with themselves and would be happy to be lauded among the people. then the concept of generosity for the arabs entered the corridors of waste and boasting, and was eventually confined to the concept of slaughtering cattle. one of the worst manifestations of generosity is that we see this in certain personalities but they are extremely miser with their own families.
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