Blessed be the strangers

Abstract

To show that, in Islam, foreignness has a rather positive connotation, the author refers to a prophetic tradition (ḥadīṯ), according to which Islam by itself – in its beginning and its end – is strange and that is why strangers are said to be blessed. Another tradition makes clear that, in Islam, the homeland locates in heaven, whereas earth is regarded as a kind of exile. This sensation of worldly strangeness points us back to God, just as does suffering in Christianity. Thus, feeling strange is by no means solely considered to be negative. Notably, in Islamic mysticism, for instance, the teachings of Suhrawardī or Ibn al-ʿArabī, offer a way out of a worldly sensation of foreignness by establishing a connection between this world and the other world. The motif of exile as conditio humana can also be found among contemporary poets who convey the message that there can be a return, not a religious one, but a homecoming to ourselves, as lightning or enlightenment. As we can see, an optimistic notion of foreignness can reconciliate religiosity and atheism, and it can also help to understand people in a current situation of strangeness-refugees and immigrants, for example.