Hospitality in the Middle East

In the modern Western world, hospitality has taken on different connotations. Perhaps as religious traditions became uprooted from the Middle East, the primacy of this virtue—or at least its association with the compassionate treatment of strangers—was lost. Westerners tend to see receiving guests as part of creating relationships. We entertain family and friends and those whom we wish to cultivate as friends rather than opening our homes to strangers. Our care for strangers tends to be monetary rather than personal.

While there are things to be said for this approach, it lacks the moral centrality of the view of hospitality John Koenig traces to ancient Greece and the Near East. As he writes in New Testament Hospitality,"According to this tradition, which has virtually disappeared from contemporary Western culture, hospitality is seen as one of the pillars of morality upon which the universe stands. When guests or hosts violate the obligations to each other, the whole world shakes and retribution follows."

via scu.edu

Excellent look at hospitality from the perspective of the Middle Eastern culture of the Koran and Bible by Amal Barkouki-Winter.