12 September, 2024
We are delighted to join the Oxford Council of Sanctuary Stakeholders’ Working Group that seeks to welcome, support, and offer opportunities to people seeking sanctuary.
By definition, the stranger is someone in whom we have no investment. There is no incentive of self-interest to make us want to turn to the stranger, get to know them, or assist them. Divine Nature insists that when we encounter a stranger, we transcend self-interest and practice empathy. To accomplish that, we must be able to identify with the stranger and imagine what it must feel like to be without power in a land not your own.
Hospitality is regarded as a three-way relationship between the host, the stranger and the Divine Power.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me . . .
as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. (Matt. 25: 35, 40)Let the believer in Allah and the day of Judgment honour his guest. (Hadiths 7)
You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love her/him as yourself. (Lev.19:34)
