Dietary Practices According to the Sunnah

[Zamli Abdullah]

Dietary Practices According to the Sunnah

---

The following is based on a lecture given by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf in London, England.

It deals with dietary practices according to the sunnah. This was published in the Muslim Word - a monthly newsletter in Toronto - May 1998 issue.

The Sheikh starts off his discussion with Ayah 19 of Sura Kahf: "We raised them up from their sleep so that they might question one another. A speaker from among them said: How long have you tarried? They said: We have tarried a day or part of a day. Another said: Your Lord best knoweth what you have tarried. Now send one of you with this silver coin into the city, and let him see (yanzuru) what food (ta'aama) is purest (azkaa) there and bring you a nourishment (rizq) from it. Let him be courteous in order not to inform the others about his presence."

There has been a concern about food from the very early period of Islam. Al-Qushayri in his Risalah says that the companions of the Prophet (saws) were more concerned about their food than about qiyaamul-layl. The reason being that if they were eating food that was not good there wouldn't be any
qiyaamul-layl.

One of the Salafs said: "I heard something (ghiba) and as a result I was denied the night prayer (tahajjud) for 40 days." Every time the word halal is mentioned in the Quran the word tayyib is mentioned with it. There is nothing redundant in the Quran so halal must mean halal and tayyib must mean tayyib. If the monetary source is not tayyib it certainly is not halal. Until recently the majority of food was pure by nature because there was very little that people could do to food to contaminate it. With the resources available today people change the chemical structures of food and the study of Dietary Science is learning how to do that.

Allah warns us not to change His creation but to leave it in its natural state. That's what fitra means. There is a beautiful hadith in Sahih Muslim in which the Prophet (saws) passed by a group of people who were pollinating and he thought it was a strange, unnatural practice. The Ansar refused to do it after the Prophet (saws) questioned it and they had a bad crop that year. So they complained to the Prophet (saws) and he said that they knew better about the dunya than he did and what he said was not based on revelation. While it was not wahy, his comment is indicative of how he viewed the world.

We are all electro-magnetic resonances at the most basic level. We are vibrating at a certain resonance. Food has a resonance and when you eat, it either nourishes or harms. Food is neutral. If you eat in its right proportions and if you eat good food then it is going to be beneficial to the body. The opposite is also true. The worst thing you can do is fill the body with food.

In a Sahih hadith the Prophet (saws) said: "The worst vessel that the son of Adam can fill is his stomach." And he also said: "It is enough for the son of Adam to have just enough morsels that he keep his back upright with. But if you have to eat more than that [and everybody thinks this is part of Sunnah] then one third for food, one third for water and one third for air." The sunnah is to consume enough morsels to keep our back straight while filling one third of the stomach with food, one third air and one third with water, this is the dispensation (rukhsa). We know that the prophet did not encourage asceticism and he (saws) did not like going to extremes. Imam Busayri says "maybe sometimes too little food is worse han too much food." The reason being that the nature of the nafs is such that the excessive extreme is safer than the deficient extremes.

A diabetic is not in danger when his sugar levels get high compared to when it gets down to really ow levels. An over-eater can go on for a long time but an under-eater can get into serious health problems in a very quick time. Imam Busayri is saying that excessive zuhud (abstinence) is worse than people who are excessive in eating because those people can end up killing themselves.

The Prophet (saws) never liked pointing out people's mistakes publicly but there are few examples when he did. There is a very interesting hadith where the Prophet (saws) said to a man with a large stomach: "Had this been on somebody else it would have been better for you." Meaning that the food you are overeating would be better if someone else was eating it. In the Kitab Al-Raqaaik of Ibn Mubarak, Umar sees Yazid making tawaf (circumambulation around the Kaaba) and his stomach coming over his izaar (belt) and he took his stick and lifted his ihram and said: "Is this the stomach of a little kafir (non-believer)?" Umar is taking this from a sahih hadith which says that the kafir eats from seven am'aa (intestines) and the mu'min (believer) eats from one.

This comes from the fact that a man came to the Prophet (saws) to learn about Islam. The companions brought him milk and he drank seven bowls and then he was finished. The next day he came and took shahadah and the Prophet offered him milk and he drank one bowl and then the Prophet asked him if he wanted more and he said no he was full. What this shows us is that the kafir's appetite for the dunya (present life) is more than the mu'min.

Food is our essential connection with the world. One of the salafs (righteous predecessors of the first few generations of Muslims) said that he would prefer to stop eating before he was satiated so that he would do qiyaamul-layl (late night prayer). When Abu Dhar Al-Ghifari went to Mecca to find out about the Prophet (saws) he stayed at the Ka'ba for one month and he used to only drink the water of zamzam and he said that he gained weight in that month. This is in the sahih.

If you look at the diet of the Prophet (saws) in the Shamaail of Imam Tirmidhi, he ate barley (sha'eer) which was proven to be the most nutritious of all the grains. And then he had dates and it was eaten in several stages corresponding to their properties. They did not drink cows milk and they made a type of yogurt from it and also made butter (zubda). He liked pumpkin, cucumber, grapes which came from Ta'if. He liked melons. They brought dried apricots from Syria but those were expensive and were for the wealthy people.

Meat was eaten rarely in the time of the Prophet (saws). In the language of this time, the companions would be considered semi-vegetarian. In those days you had to sacrifice before you had meat and so meat was eaten when people were invited as guests by someone else. Meat is a 'na'eem' or an excessive food. The Arabs call somebody who loves meat or is carnivorous 'qarim.' So Umar told him that he was afraid that he would become like those who lose all of their good deeds in this world by taking too much na'eem from the dunya. And Umar during his khilafa prohibited the eating of meat everyday. This is permissible for the Khalifah to do because it is mubah to eat meat everyday.

It is said that Hasan Al-Basri used to eat a small amount of meat everyday and we didn't consider this affecting his status as a zahid (ascetic). The Prophet (saws) said: "Meat is the master of food." It is like the aristocrat of food. Imam Malik has a chapter called Bab Al-Lahm (The Chapter on Meat) in his Muwatta. There are two hadith and they are both warnings about eating meat: 1. "Beware of meat because it has an addiction like the addiction of wine." To this day they call meat "khamr Al-Mu'mineen" (wine of the believers) in Yemen. People who eat meat constantly must have meat in their food because they get addicted to its taste or flavour. In many places of the Muslim world, meat was flourishing, they did not eat large pieces of meat. oday people can refrigerate and rear large amounts of hormonized cows. Meat consumption is much higher today than it was in the past.

(The Shaykh discusses the danger of unnatural growth hormone and estrogen[a female hormone] in the meat and milk we consume and points out that immigrant parents who are of average height are now finding that their children are much taller than them or anyone in their families, either on the mother or father's side.

Many think it is a good thing and attribute their children size to the good food they are eating as if they didn't get good food back where they came from). Where ever American beef has gone there has been an increase in the size of the people. This has happened in Japan and in Asian countries such as the Philippines. The average height of an average person is five feet eight inches. In the Muslim world that's the average height. If you are six feet and you go on Hajj you will tower over everyone else.

The other Hadith in the Muwatta: 2. Umar (RA) sees someone who buys meat every time and he said: "It would be better if you tucked your stomach in little bit and let other people eat." In the Muslim world beef is not the dominant meat but lamb is, which is the traditional meat of the Prophet(saws), although he did sacrifice a cow on the Hajj and it was for his women. There is a sahih hadith that says: "The meat of the cow is disease and its milk is a cure."

Today we are seeing evidence that cow meat is the number one reason for cardioarterio-vascular disease - when all of the arteries get clogged up. We see that for people who have a habit of eating a lot of cow meat, bypass operations are very common. It is tragic because if you follow the sunnah you will not need to have a bypass operation.

Allah swt says: "Eat and drink but not to excess, Allah does not love those who are excessive." The Prophet (saws) said: "The best of my Ummah are my generation, then the second generation then the third generation, then they start getting plump." (Sahih) It was your own appetite (nafs) that led to your heart condition and you should only blame yourself. The body is designed to live over 120 years.

The Prophet (saws) said that the ages of his Ummah will be between 60-70 years. (Sahih). The Prophet (saws) died when he was 63 and it is said that his stomach was completely flat, he had only 17 grey hairs in his beard and he had the strength of 40 men.

The body has rights over us. The right of the body is that it has to be fed properly and it has to be given exercise and rest. Imam Al-Ghazali says that the maximum amount of sleep that the body must be given is eight hours. Sleep is nourishment; it is food for the Ruh (spirit). SLEEP The body is fed by protein, carbohydrates and lipids while the ruh (soul) is fed by the remembrance (dhikr) of Allah and sleep (nawm). It is true that the more dhikr you do the less sleep you need. If you sleep before midnight (half way between Maghrib and Fajr) after Esha that sleep is worth twice of sleep after midnight. The sunnah of the prophet is to go to bed right after Esha. If you sleep after Fajr before shuruq then that is negative sleep. If you slept for two hours it is as if you were deprived of two hours of sleep. It is negative sleep. If you sleep before Zuhr (Midday) before Asr (late afternoon) then that is positive sleep and it is worth twice in terms of rejuvenation of the body.

According to Imam As-Suyuti in Tibb'An-Nabawi (Medicine of the Prophet), "whoever sleeps after Asr and wakes up mad let him blame only himself." The Prophet (saws) used to sleep after Zuhr and he said: "Take afternoon sleep (qaylula) because Shaitan (the devil) does not take it." It helps you get up at night for the night prayer (tahajjud). When you take the afternoon rest it literally brings you back to the freshness of the morning. It is like starting the day all over again.

Sickness is not a bad thing because its taharah (purification) for this Ummah (Muslim nation). There is no good in a body that does not get sick, it is a purification. The Prophet (saws) got sick but not from any disease which is not allowed for Prophets. You will get sick when your immune system deteriorates.

This happens when you don't give the body its right. You should not consume too much sugar because it will compromise your immune system. Drinking all these sugared drinks is bad for your health and secondly you should not be supporting corporations that are "al-mufsidoon fil ard." (corrupters in the land).

The Prophet (saws) did not drink with meals. If you drink sugared liquid with a meal then it creates a fermentation inside your stomach especially if you've eaten carbohydrates and meat.

You weaken the digestion and you put out the fire of digestion by drinking a cold fluid. It is better to drink a warm fluid than a cold fluid after your meals

- Show quoted text -