Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 125

its sweetness assuages mental suffering
as does talbīna , a dish made with honey,
hence their consumption at funerals. It
is possible that the dictum attributed to
the faīh of Medina, Rabīa b. Abī Abd
al-Ramān (d. 136/753-4), according to
which the eating of abī (jelly made with
starch) fortifies the brain, belongs to this
class of popular opinions.
But as well as these there was also the
corpus of scholarly opinions, transmitted
by topics and stemming for the most part
from the scientific medicine systematized
by the Greeks. It consisted of general-
izations based sometimes on systematic
research on data which were certainly
not self-evident (such as the presence in
the human body, besides blood, of the
pituitary glands, yellow and black bile),
from which the Greeks had drawn up
a carefully worked out system, avoiding
symbolic data and open in principle to
revision, consisting as it did of hypotheses
which could be verified or invalidated. It
was based on the theory of humours, from
which had been deduced all kinds of con-
clusions on the nature of each food and its
suitability to one or another human tem-
perament. Thus all the topics of medicine
contain a long chapter enumerating, usu-
ally in alphabetical order, the attributes
and faults of each food from the point of
view of bodily and spiritual well-being.
Special works are also devoted to this
branch of medicine, dietetics. Some of
them were translated into Latin and had
a considerable influence on European
dietetics. The educated classes paid a
great deal of attention to dietetic precepts,
so that this science was of no small practi-
cal importance. To choose one example
among scores, there was the topic on
dietetics written by Maimonides for al-
Malik al-Afal. Moreover, these scholarly
theories penetrated deeply among the
masses, where they became inextricably

mixed, sometimes in a debased form, with
current ideas coming from other sources.
At the same time the learned works
came more and more to take account of
popular ideas on diet. Thus the famous
doctor-philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī
(d. 311/923 or 320/932) wrote that fresh
dates caused ophthalmia, an idea which
re-appears later in Ibn al-Bayār in the
7th/13th century. It is probable that this
theory, which was unknown to the Greeks
and to unayn b. Isā, came from pop-
ular ideas in the East.
Scholarly ideas on dietetics were influ-
enced by popular ideas, particularly when
it came to dealing with diets for special
cases. For example the diet of women in
child-birth is the subject of only a few
general recommendations by the Greek
physicians and the first Arab theorists
who derived their ideas from them. But
later the subject was developed under
the influence of popular recipes. Thus a
9th/15th century writer recommends, in
addition to foods and medicines intended
as remedies for stomach pains etc., fresh
ripe dates ( ruab ) and, if they are not avail-
able, ordinary dates also. This is justified
by a adī and by the example of the Vir-
gin Mary in urān, XIX, 25.

7. Post-urānic religious regulations
The pious specialists on religious ques-
tions who, in the 2nd/8th century, began
to advise on the way of life which best
conformed to the Muslim ideal recom-
mended or discouraged the eating of
certain foods, in accordance with current
practice. Gradually these recommenda-
tions became canonized, as they were
attributed to earlier and earlier authori-
ties ending with the Prophet himself, at
the same time that attempts were made
to deduce from them general rules, to sys-
tematize them and also to bring them into
harmony with the few prescriptions, later