Generosity in Arabic culture

In his “Essai sur le don” (“The Gift”) the sociologist Marcel Mauss studied the ritual of gift exchange that, in various ancient societies, was characterized by exaggeration, but also by its consideration as not only a material giving, but also as a spiritual one. Was the exaggeration of giving regarded as a kind of heroism in the old Arab society, the question arises, if this was at the same time a spiritual giving of himself. To answer this question an anecdote about the poetess al-Khansāʾ (who lived at the time of the prophet Muhammad) is analyzed, whereby it becomes apparent that the ritual of giving exchange had something to do with poetry or magic, and therefore possessed a dimension of spirituality. Though the exaggerated gift represents a pre-Islamic ‘virtue’, this ritual has survived in Arabic countries, even in modern times. Therefore, it seemed only natural to conduct an interview about this topic as a kind of ethnographic fieldwork. As it turned out, the old Arab ideal did undeniably survive, while at the same time it now interferes with a rational discourse that makes heroic exaggeration appear ‘unreasonable’.