While scholarly studies of Iraq tend to focus on its conflict-ridden political machinations, institutional weakness, and engrained sectarianism, they are less attentive to the ways in which notions of generosity, care, and the virtues of hosting govern how Iraqis relate to and live with one another. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Iraq from 2021-2023 and informed by fifteen years of kindness received across the author's life in the region, this paper examines how Iraqis cultivate the virtues of karam and gheira, concepts which encapsulate forms of non-transactional generosity, sacrifice, and giving. It further argues that these concepts can function as a challenge to, and negotiation with, political violence and should be central to how we understand the contested politics of belonging in the country. The complex practices associated with karam and gheira encompass broad forms of social care and mutual aid that could include hosting a visiting friend, offering support to a stranger in need, or other forms of giving. These values are often framed by Iraqis as fundamental and critical components of functional, meaningful, and ethical life amidst complex social and cultural diversity amongst the brutalizing effects of war, authoritarianism, and structural and social breakdown. While both notions, karam and gheira, govern relationships between intimates, families, and friends, they also, crucially, can inform a person's sense of responsibility to the needs of strangers, and are often invoked by Iraqis when they argue for the importance of non- and anti-sectarian visions of politics. As important is that these forms of giving are explicitly framed by Iraqis as non-transactional, a claim difficult to account for through the idiom of reciprocity that commonly frames 'tribal' or 'political' structure in Maussian inspired scholarship on the Middle East, as elsewhere.