A point on which the temper of the Bedawee was easily touched was his family pride. The Arab prized good blood as much in men as in his horses and camels. In these he saw the importance of breed, and in men he firmly believed the same principle held good. With the tenacious memory of his race, he had no difficulty in remembering the whole of a complicated pedigree, and he would often proudly dwell on the purity of his blood and the gallant deeds of his forefathers. He would challenge another chief to prove a more noble descent, and hot disputes and bitter rivalries often came of these comparisons.
But if noble birth brought rivalry and hatred, it brought withal excellent virtues. The Arab nobleman was not a man who was richer and more idle and luxurious than his inferiors: his position, founded upon descent, depended for its maintenance on personal qualities. Rank brought with it onerous obligations. The chief, if he would retain and carry on the repute of his line, must not only be fearless and ready to fight all the world; he must be given to hospitality, generous to kith and kin, and to all who cry unto him. His tent must be so pitched in the camp that it shall not only be the first that the enemy attacks, but also the first the wayworn stranger approaches; and at night fires must be kindled hard by to guide wanderers in the desert to his hospitable entertain ment. If a man came to an Arab noble’s tent and said, ‘I throw myself on your honour,’ he was safe from his enemies until they had trampled on the dead body of his host. Nothing was baser than to give up a guest; the treachery was rare, and brought endless dishonour upon the clan in which the shame had taken place. The poet extols the tents—
Where dwells a kin great of heart, whose word is enough to shield
whom they shelter when peril comes in a night of fierce strife and storm;
Yea, noble are they: the seeker of vengeance gains not from them
the blood of his foe, nor is he that wrongs them left without help.
The feeling lasted even under the debased rule of Muslim despots; for it is related that a governor was once ordering-out some prisoners to execution, when one of them asked for a drink of water, which was immediately given him. He then turned to the governor and said, ‘Wilt thou slay thy guest?’ and was forthwith set free. A pledge of protection was inferred in the giving of hospitality, and to break his word was a thing not to be thought upon by an Arab. He did not care to give an oath; his simple word was enough, for it was known to be inviolable. Hence the priceless worth of the Arab chief’s word of welcome: it meant protection, unswerving fidelity, help, and succour.
There was no bound to this hospitality. It was the pride of the Arab to place everything he possessed at the service of the guest. The last milch-camel must be killed sooner than the duties of hospitality be neglected. The story is told of Ḥátim, a gallant poet-warrior of the tribe of Ṭayyi, which well illustrates the Arab ideal of hostship. Ḥátim was at one time brought to the brink of starvation by the dearth of a rainless season. For a whole day he and his family had eaten nothing, and at night, after soothing the children to sleep by telling them some of those stories in which the Arabs have few rivals, he was trying by his cheerful conversation to make his wife forget her hunger. Just then they heard steps without, and a corner of the tent was raised. ‘Who is there?’ said Ḥátim. A woman’s voice replied, ‘I am such a one, thy neighbour. My children have nothing to eat, and are howling like young wolves, and I have come to beg help of thee.’ ‘Bring them here,’ said Ḥátim. His wife asked him what he would do, for if he could not feed his own children, how should he find food for this woman’s? ‘Do not disturb thyself,’ he answered. Now Ḥátim had a horse renowned far and wide for the purity of his stock and the fleetness and beauty of his paces. He would not kill his favourite for himself nor even for his own children; but now he went out and slew him, and prepared him with fire for the strangers’ need. And when he saw them eating with his wife and children, he exclaimed, ‘It were a shame that you alone should eat whilst all the camp is perishing of hunger;’ and he went and called the neighbours to the meal, and in the morning there remained of the horse nothing but his bones. But as for himself, wrapped in his mantle, he sat apart in a corner of the tent.
This Ḥátim is a type of the Arab nature at its noblest. Though renowned for his courage and skill in war, he never suffered his enmity to overcome his generosity. He had sworn an oath never to take a man’s life, and he strictly observed it, and always withheld the fatal last blow. In spite of his clemency, he was ever successful in the wars of his clan, and brought back from his raids many a rich spoil, only to spend it at once in his princely fashion. His generosity and faithful observance of his word at times placed him in positions of great danger; but the alternative of denying his principles seems never to have occurred to his mind. For instance, he had imposed upon himself as a law never to refuse a gift to him that asked it of him. Once, engaged in single combat, he had disarmed and routed his opponent, who then turned and said, ‘Ḥátim, give me thy spear.’ At once he threw it to him, leaving himself defenceless; and had he not met an adversary worthy of himself, this had been the last of his deeds. Happily Ḥátim was not the only generous warrior of the Arabs, and his foe did not avail himself of his advantage. When Ḥátim’s friends remonstrated with him on the rashness of an act which, in the spirit of shopkeepers, they regarded as quixotic, Ḥátim said, ‘What would you have me to do? He asked of me a gift!’
It was Ḥátim’s practice to buy the liberty of all captives who sought his aid: it was but another application of the Arab virtue of hospitality. Once a captive called to him when he was on a journey and had not with him the means of paying the ransom. But he was not wont to allow any difficulties to baulk him of the exercise of his duty, and he had the prisoner released, stepping meanwhile into his chains until his own clan should send the ransom.