Melmastyā́, or
hospitality
Hospitality is the relationship between a guest and a host, wherein the host receives the guest with some amount of goodwill, including the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt describes ...
, is the requirement
Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali or Pakhtunwali ( ps, پښتونولي) is the traditional lifestyle and is best described as a code of honor of the Pashtun people, by which they live. Scholars widely have interpreted it as being "the way of the Afghans" or "the code ...
places on all its tribesmen towards others, whether they are strangers or members of one's own tribe. Melmastyā́ requires hospitality and profound respect to be shown all visitors, regardless of distinctions of race, religion, national affiliation as well as economic status and doing so without any hope of remuneration or favour.
Pashtuns
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically r ...
will go to great extents to show their hospitality.
Elphinstone in 1815 observed: "The most remarkable characteristic of the
Afghans
Afghans ( ps, افغانان, translit=afghanan; Persian/ prs, افغان ها, translit=afghānhā; Persian: افغانستانی, romanized: ''Afghanistani'') or Afghan people are nationals or citizens of Afghanistan, or people with ancestry ...
is their hospitality. The practice of this virtue is so much a point of national honor, that their reproach to an inhospitable man is that he has no Pushtunwali". (Elphinston 1969: 226).
Hospitality to strangers is an obligation and is offered free, without expecting any reciprocity. But hospitality to one's kinsmen or tribesmen puts the recipient under reciprocal obligation, accompanied by the "fear that he will not be in the position to return it adequately when the occasion demands".
See also
*
Nanawatai Nənawā́te ( ps, ننواتې, "sanctuary") is a tenet of the Pashtunwali code of the Pashtun people. It allows a beleaguered person to enter the house of any other person and make a request of him which cannot be refused, even at the cost of the ...
References
External links
Melmastyā́ on Afghan Wiki
Afghan culture
Pashto words and phrases
Pashtun culture
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