See also animals; arabic langUage and litera-
tUre; maJnUn and layla; persian langUage and
literatUre.
Anna BigelowFurther reading: Dwight Reynolds, Heroic Poets, Poetic
Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arab
Epic Oral Tradition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1995); John Seyller, The Adventures of Hamza:
Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India (Washington,
D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution, and London: Azimuth, 2002);
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi
qisas al-anbiya, or “Lives of the Prophets.” Translated by
William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002).
food and drink
Food is a fundamental requirement for all living
things, yet how it is selected, grown, prepared,
served, and eaten are uniquely human activities.
Humans also have the ability to imagine and
manipulate symbolic meanings for food, incor-
porating them into their religious and cultural
life. The natural environment sets some limits
on the kinds and quantities of food that might be
available, grown, and harvested, but the cultural
environment is able to exploit these limitations
to the maximum, creating elaborate cuisines for
bodily pleasure, display on the table, and men-
tal contemplation. Food and drink also occupy
important places in memory and history, allowing
people to recall significant moments in the life of
their family, community, or nation and to express
their individual and collective identities.
Muslim social and religious life reflects these
different aspects of culinary culture. The qUran
provides a general framework with respect to the
religious and symbolic dimensions, as reflected
in its depictions of paradise, descriptions of God’s
creative power, and legislation of dietary laWs.
adam and eve, the first humans, lived in a gar-
den, enjoying all its fruits except those of the tree
of immortality, which was forbidden to them (Q
7:189; 2:35). When they disobeyed God and ate
from it, they were denied their place in the garden.
As creator of the universe, the Quran declares that
God is the one who sends rainwater to nourish the
earth’s vegetation, including foods for people to
eat such as grain, date palms, grapes, olives, and
pomegranates (Q 6:99). More than being purely
natural phenomena, the growth of food plants and
animals is presented as a system of signs designed
to remind the faithful to submit and worship the
one God, allah. According to the Quran, he cre-
ated all manner of food for humans to consume
(Q 6:14; 26:78), commanding the faithful, “Eat
of the good things that we have granted you”
(Q 2:172). Moreover, in the aFterliFe, righteous
believers are promised lush gardens through
which rivers of water, milk, honey, and wine flow
where they will consume food and drink served
by youthful servants and beautiful servant girls,
the houris (sing. hoUri).
The command to “eat of the good things”
is linked to admonitions not to follow in the
way of sata n, but to be thankful to God and
eat only what is permitted. Eating, therefore, is
symbolically associated with moral action, since
the Quran relates eating permitted foods with
thanking God, who provided them. The dietary
laws of what is permitted (halal) and forbidden
(haram) are given in some detail in the Quran and
elaborated further in the hadith and juristic litera-
ture. While most foods are allowed, Muslims are
obliged to abstain from consuming swine flesh,
blood, carrion, and wine. Meat must be properly
slaughtered in the name of God. Muslims are
permitted to eat lawful and pure food prepared
by other People of the Book, particularly Jews
and Christians. Adherence to the dietary laws
expresses the relation of Muslims with God and
establishes their identity as a distinct religious
community among other peoples.
For centuries, Muslims have drawn inspira-
tion from mUhammad, the founding prophet of
Islam, for many aspects of their life, includingK 246 food and drink