What does Islam teach about hospitality to refugees and migrants?

Islamic teaching places strong emphasis on hospitality toward those displaced from their homes, rooted in the Prophet Muhammad's own experience of migration (hijrah) from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. The Quran praises the residents of Medina, the Ansar ('helpers'), who took in the Muhajirun (migrants) who arrived with nothing: 'they give them preference over themselves, even though they are in privation... and whoever is protected from the stinginess of his own soul, it is those who will be successful' (59:9). This passage is frequently invoked as a model for how a receiving community should treat refugees — with generosity that goes beyond convenience. Earlier still, the first Muslims fleeing persecution sought refuge in Christian Abyssinia, and its ruler is remembered in Islamic tradition for protecting them despite differences of religion, illustrating that this ethic of asylum was not limited to Muslim-to-Muslim hospitality. Muslim scholars and humanitarian organizations continue to draw on these precedents when discussing obligations toward displaced people today, framing the sheltering of refugees as both a matter of shared human dignity and a specific religious value grounded in the Prophet's own history.

Ask your own question → All questions