COMMON LIFE
Dar al-Bidaya, the trial wing
The house of the beginning. One stays there under everyone’s rules, and pays nothing: no payment, from whomever it comes, entitles anyone to the stay.
Whoever applies does not go straight into the dormitories. He stays in a distinct wing, Dar al-Bidāya, the house of the beginning: same hours, same work, same table, same outfit supplied by the house. No payment is due, and no payment — from whomever it comes — entitles anyone to the stay, determines its length or affects the outcome of the application.
Three kinds of stay, and what distinguishes them
What decides is neither the length nor the origin, but the reason one comes. Whoever comes for the house does not pay; whoever comes for himself pays, and does not stay here.
- 1. 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. At the end, either a fixed-term apprenticeship contract opens, or the path ends.
- 2. 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. Nothing is paid: hospitality is free, 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.
- 3. The stay at the Munya. For those who come not to know the house but to spend a few days in a beautiful place. One pays a rate, and stays in the guesthouse, which is a separate building and a distinct legal entity: neither the hours, nor the shifts, nor the common table.
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. Reading does not teach it; standing at a bench beside someone who practises it does.
Not to be confused. Dar al-Bidāya is the trial wing, free and inside common life. Al-Munya is another thing: the paying guesthouse, in a separate building, with its own entrance and a distinct legal entity. A stay at Al-Munya in no case entitles anyone to admission or to access to common life.