Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 122

mark itself off distinctly from the others by
having its own series of rules concerning
food. To eat just like others implied, gen-
erally speaking, that a group did not con-
sider itself completely split off from them.
In principle one should not eat with the
kāfir , which gave rise to the vast question
of who exactly is to be regarded as kāfir.
The urān allowed Muslims to eat the
food of the Ahl al-kitāb and vice versa (V,
7/5, see above). But there is attributed to
the Prophet a letter to the Mazdeans of
Haar according to which Muslims were
not to eat meat which they had killed as
a sacrifice. Even in relation to the Ahl
al-kitāb , the law was more restrictive than
the urān, at least concerning animals
killed while hunting or by ritual slaugh-
ter. It was not forbidden but reprehensi-
ble ( makrūh ), according to certain Mālikīs,
to eat what a Kitābī had slaughtered for
himself; according to others, on the con-
trary, this applied to meat slaughtered by
a Kitābī for a Muslim. In all cases it was
reprehensible to obtain meat from a non-
Muslim butcher (Mālikīs). It was advis-
able to make sure that the name of Allāh
had been invoked and not the Cross, or
Jesus, etc., though it was permissible to
eat, according to all the schools except
the anbalīs, if no name at all had been
invoked. However, a fatwā of Muammad
Abduh supporting the same position,
issued in about 1903, seems to have pro-
voked heated arguments. But it was rep-
rehensible to eat anything destined for the
synagogues, the churches or the feasts of
the Ahl al-kitāb. In any case meat obtained
from an idolater, a Mazdean, a pagan or
an apostate was prohibited. To this list
was sometimes added Christian Arabs
(prohibited by āfiīs, and reprehensible
according to certain Mālikīs). The appli-
cation of these principles has remained
fairly strict until the present day. In
China, many of the Muslim carriers take

their own bread with them on journeys
in order to avoid eating food prepared by
infidels. Usāma chose his food carefully
in the house of the orientalized Frankish
knight mentioned above. However, it is
well known that Jewish food conforms to
the Muslim rites and thus may be eaten,
unlike that of Christians, hence a well-
known proverb giving the advice to sleep
in Christian beds (which are clean). but
to eat Jewish food. However the eastern
Christians often tended to conform with
the Muslim regulations, At the same time
Christians and Jews very often avoided
Muslim food. The Christians of Ethiopia
reproached Europeans with eating meat
killed by Muslims, which they considered
as amounting practically to apostasy.
The Christians of Nābulus before the
1914-18 war limited themselves to avoid-
ing the meat of animals sacrificed during
the Muslim Feast of Sacrifices, while the
Copts in Egypt in the 11th/17th century
bought no food of any sort from Muslims
during this feast. But the Jews of Buārā
in the 12th/18th century had no scruples
about eating animals killed by Muslims.
The Afrīdīs of Afānistān, who claim to
be of Jewish origin, eat, therefore, meat
cooked by Jews, but, being also Sunnīs,
refuse meat prepared by īīs. A similar
separatism concerning food is to be found
therefore among the various sects, but
was rather exceptional. In the 4th/10th
century a jurist of ayrawān refused to
eat sugar which came from Fāimid Sic-
ily. The question of eating meat which
has been sacrificed arises more often. A
saying attributed to ala b. Muarrif (d.
112 or 113/730 or 731) and used by the
anbalīs extends to the Rāfia the prohi-
bition decreed by Muammad concerning
the Mazdeans: it was forbidden to marry
their women or to eat the animals which
they had slaughtered as sacrifices. The
Ismāīlīs forbade eating the meat of sac-