Dar al-Asl

Whoever applies lodges in the common dormitories, with the same hours, the same work, the same table and the same outfit supplied by the house. At Dār al-Aṣl stay instead the guests the house receives without asking anything in return. In neither case is any payment due, and no payment, from whomever it comes, entitles anyone to the stay, determines its length or affects the outcome of the application.

The crest of Dār al-Aṣl: on the threshold of the portico, an earthenware pot with a young carob, not yet in the ground, between the two grown carobs of the house.

The kinds of hospitality, and what distinguishes them

What decides is the reason one comes, rather than the length of the stay or the origin, and on that depends where one sleeps as well.

1. Dar al-Asl, the house of the origin, inside Al-Munya: it lodges without charge those whom the House invites, with the costs borne by Al-Munya.

2. The trial, at-tajriba. Two to four weeks, paid, on the building site or in the workshop, for those who want to know the life of the house because they intend to stay in it. One sleeps in the common dormitories. At the end, either a fixed-term apprenticeship contract opens, or the path ends.

3. The fixed-term stay, iqāma muwaqqata. Two weeks to three months, for those who want to know the house without putting themselves forward as members. It is the fixed-term stay, in the dormitories of the House: nothing is paid, as the Mediterranean tradition wants and the Islamic one prescribes. It is granted on application, by written decision with fixed dates, may be renewed once and does not convert into admission. One sleeps in the common dormitories.

4. Dar al-Diyafa, the house of hospitality, inside Al-Munya. The nudamāʾ and the guests they present stay there at their own expense; every request is examined, and may be refused.

The distinction needs no policing, because it applies itself: whoever comes to rest does not choose a door that entails workshop hours and service shifts.

Open to anyone

The fixed-term stay is open to anyone, whatever their origin, language or culture: even to a European with no tie to that culture. Whoever enters by that door wears the same outfit, sits at the same table, does the same shifts and pays nothing.

It is the simplest and most rewarding way of knowing from the inside a civilisation of work that in Europe is almost unknown. One learns it standing at a bench beside someone who practises it, more than by reading about it.

Not to be confused. Al-Munya is the body. Inside: Dar al-Asl, where the guests of the house lodge without charge, and Dar al-Diyafa, where the nudamāʾ and their guests lodge against payment. Apprentices on trial sleep in the dormitories of the House. A stay at Dar al-Diyafa entitles no one to admission or to access to common life.