Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 199

in order not to be proud, and later returned
the courtesy by inviting them to a fine
meal. Al-Ghazālī's injunctions on eating
and drinking include so many prayers and
rules of etiquette that meals are literally
transformed into religious rituals.

and two other shaykhs, although they
promised him the spiritual reward of a
month's or a year's fasting for the bless-
ing of sharing this meal with them. The
young man's failure to obey the desires of
his spiritual superiors caused him to fall
out of God's favor, become a thief, and
lose his hand. This anecdote is intended
to warn disciples of the dangers of disobe-
dience to shaykhs but it also reflects the
notion that food offered by a saint carries
the saint's blessing (baraka) and should not
be refused.
Hospitality is one of the most impor-
tant aspects of the celebration of saints'
days (mawlid) in modern Egypt. Many
devotees of the family of the Prophet ( ahl
al-bayt , which in Egyptian understand-
ing includes most of the hundreds or
thousands of saints buried in Egypt) set
up hospitality stations (khidma , pl. khidam ,
-āt) in large canopied tents or simply on
a cloth spread out on the sidewalk or in
rented rooms in schools or other public
buildings. Visitors are invited to receive
at least a drink and, often, a meal as well.
Such gifts, called nafa , a term which
means both “gift” and “fragrance,” con-
vey the baraka of the saint and may not
be refused. Many poor people gravitate to
the mawlid to take advantage of the char-
ity, but the wealthy likewise eat, in order
to receive the saint's baraka , regardless of
whether one is hungry or not.
The meaning of food offering is inter-
preted according to the social context.
When a shaykh offers food, he is offering
his own baraka , and a blessing is conveyed
to the person who eats it. A devoted fol-
lower of a shaykh may even wish to eat
the shaykh's leftovers or drink from his
cup. When a shaykh accepts an invita-
tion to eat at someone's home, he brings
baraka to the house when he enters, and
he honors the host by partaking of his
food. Hierarchy and submission are

Hospitality in ~f{ life
Drawing upon qurānic concepts of
God's generosity, early ūfīs cultivated an
attitude of absolute dependence on God
and an expectation that he would pro-
vide for all their needs; in consequence,
they often refrained from asking others
for food. They were also deeply suspi-
cious that food offered by others could be
“doubtful,” that is, obtained through pos-
sibly illicit means or paid for with money
earned in a dubious fashion. Al-Hujwīrī
(d. 465/1072) and al-Ghazālī cautioned
that a ūfī should never accept the food
of a rich man. Muammad Amad
Riwān, father of the previously-men-
tioned Amad Riwān, demonstrated the
continuity of this early attitude when he
refused to go to the homes of government
officials and declined to accept invita-
tions to eat, cautioning that “most food
these days is doubtful”. In contrast, the
giving of hospitality became an integral
part of ūfī practice. Al-Hujwīrī details
the regulations for residents of a ūfī con-
vent (khanqāh) and requirements of offer-
ing hospitality to traveling ūfīs and, for
the traveler, of receiving such hospitality.
In the ūfī gatherings of modern Egypt,
centers for devotion, spiritual retreats,
and hospitality, the importance of offering
food to travelers is reflected in the enor-
mous concrete tables that are sometimes
built into the very floors and are able to
accommodate one hundred diners at a
single sitting. Al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072)
tells the story of a young man who was
fasting and refused to break his fast to eat
with Abū Yazīd al-Bisāmī (d. 261/874)