Review of Mona Siddiqui, Hospitality and Islam

Michelle Rebidoux

Mona Siddiqui’s latest book definitely fulfills her main intention in writing it, which is to fill a gap in the contemporary scholarship on the theme of “hospitality,” which, as she purports, has heretofore been largely neglected in writings on Islam. Of course, “hospitality” has already enjoyed at least two decades of thematic prominence in the philosophical arena (influenced especially by the work of Levinas and Derrida), and has been taken up extensively in philosophical writings on Judaism and Christianity, as well as in political philosophy. In the present work, Siddiqui fruitfully extends this thematic focus to core Islamic texts and traditions (representing primarily Sunni Islam), engaging three main senses of hospitality frequently distinguished in philosophical writings on the theme: the “host-guest” relationship, which unfolds in the intimacy of the private home; the “hoststranger” relationship, which unfolds in the socio-political sphere (especially concerning issues such as foreign travel, immigration and refugees); and inter-religious hospitality. With reference specifically to the second of these, Siddiqui does not contribute any sociological or political critique of current practice, but focuses instead on the “theological underpinnings” (p. 7) of hospitality in both the host-guest and host-stranger relationship. In terms of the third sense, inter religious hospitality, she not only points out Islam’s own textual and traditional precedents for it (beginning with Abraham), but enacts it herself in the text by engaging numerous Biblical, as well as some later Christian, articulations of the theme side-by-side with Islamic ones. She is particularly interested in the promotion of hospitality as an attitude of openness, a way of fulfillment of life and of perfection both moral and spiritual, rather than as a characterization of individual acts (whether exemplary or required). This attitude, fully realized in the figure of Abraham, structurally defines and unifies the three Abrahamic traditions (beyond the Abrahamic traditions, however, she does not extend her discussion), therein regulating relationships along a number of key lines: inside/outside, public/private, God/humanity, and male/female (to each of which is dedicated a chapter of its own).