Islamic Food ‘Etiquette’ is completely
different from the Western One

Dr. Hoffman : “Food etiquette in Morocco has firmly established
traditions and beautiful rituals”

 The German thinker, Dr Murad Hoffman, former German ambassador, concludes his talk about his faith journey which led him to safe harbour through his embracement of Islam. After having dwelt on one of the most important stages of this journey where he talked about the spiritual atmosphere the Muslim experiences all over the world during the holy month of Ramadan, which is the month of repentance and forgiveness.  It is the month during which the Muslim gets rid of his sins and hopes for Allah’s forgiveness and mercy, Hoffman takes us today, with his talk about the eating etiquette among Muslims, to another atmosphere and a different world.

Dr Hoffman talks about the way Islam organizes all aspects of life, describing the general features that go into the making of the eating habits among Muslims, that is the Islamic etiquette with regard to food, which is completely different from the Western one. He also presents the code of behaviour and traditions of both Islam and the West in a brief comparison.

Dr. Hoffman said : “As Islam organizes all aspects of life, it also organizes eating habits, which we call ‘etiquette’. Many of these rules are familiar to us because they are known all over the world, but some of them are specific to Muslims only, following manners actually practiced by the Messenger (PBUH) or carrying out his instructions.

In some Arab homes, the guest is received with dates and the host helps him remove his coat ; he does not sit in the leading place of the social gathering unless the host insists on that. Before serving the meal, the host allows the guests to wash their hands, for a person actually eats with his fingers. Some hosts, particularly in Morocco, turn this into beautiful rituals and firmly established traditions ; thus everybody gathers around a basin on which there is soap, while a person pours water on the guests’ hands, it is more often than not the host himself who performs this task. This is done once again after the guests finish eating their meal. The host perfumes the guests’ hands with rose water or orange-flower water before their departure.

Some Muslims clean their teeth with ‘Sewak’ after finishing their meals. Sewak is a small stick (about 15 mm thick) from very soft wood. I also have some sewak which I got from Al-Madinah Al-Munawara. Its distinctive feature lies in the fact that its use does not require water or toothpaste.

In order for a person to be able to eat with his hand, food is divided into small portions, which makes the use of a knife unnecessary. In spite of that, the complete tableware set is laid, not just the soup ladle. Traditions do not allow the use of silver tableware ; not only because silver is used for the manufacture of coins, but also because all tableware is a non-Islamic luxury (and this is what a person should be reminded of regularly in the Islamic embassies residences).

When food is served, a person eats from the meat, the pastry or the fruit that is immediately before him. The host and those sitting near the person usually make sure that he finds in his plate all that is delicious. More often than not, some fill my plate with delicious food without taking into account my strong objection. The person serves himself and eats with three fingers of his right hand: the thumb, the index and the middle finger, because eating with two fingers alone is too difficult while eating with all the fingers of the hand is considered as a disapproved gluttony. If a person does not like some kind of food, he keeps away from it. The messenger Muhammad (PBUH) himself used to do the same, for he disliked food containing too much garlic. As to me, I am afraid to say that I dislike the taste of cumin. The reason for being sorry here is that this type of spice plays a major role all over the Middle-East.

It is easy for a person not to eat from a type of food when the whole meal from appetizers to pastry, is served all at once. I knew this when Sheik Zayed bin Sulatn Al-Nahyan (the President of the United Arab Emirates State) invited me to lunch with him. The dinning table appeared as if it were bending under the weight of the food it carried. This is also what happened when I was invited to lunch on the sheep Feast Day by the Servant of the Two Holy Places, King Fahd Ibn Abdulaziz Al-Saoud at Minan. My nature is such that I completely lose appetite for food when I see before me bananas or pastry (a cream tart) next to roasted liver, a chicken filled with candied almonds and nuts or the hairs of a roasted sheep. This is why, at Minan I only ate some dates, a small piece of bread and a banana ; then I bowed to the host King and left.

According to our eating habits in the West, leaving immediately after finishing eating is considered as a big insult, for we were brought up not to leave the dinning table before our mother’s or father’s permission. But things are completely different with respect to Islamic etiquette in that the Muslim host starts eating before his guests so as to prove to them that the food is safe and not dangerous, and he is the last to stop eating. This is the reason why the host -even when he is a king- is the last person staying alone at his table, hence the blamelessness of my behaviour at Minan.

Perhaps someone may disagree by saying that I could at least have had a nice conversation at Minan around the dining table without eating much food. Well! This has nothing to do with Islam. A person, as a guest in the house of a Muslim indulges in a long conversation before the meal, speaks very little during it, and leaves a little time after finishing it. This organization gives the host the possibility of determining the amount of time his guests remain at his place.

When I talked about tables overloaded with different types and quantities of food to the extent that they were bending, I did not mean that wastefulness, particularly throwing food in dustbins, may be an Islamic behaviour. It is the other way around. Muslim hosts from Dubai to Marrakesh deem it their duty to be hospitable to the guest and to spoil him. However, there is, behind doors, a whole army of workers and poor people ready to receive the remaining food.

The excessive hospitality shown to the guest in the Middle-East constitutes a problem for the German officials who visit it. The budget rubrics of the rich Republic of West Germany do not allow its representatives -whether they be the president of the union, a minister or a representative- to reciprocate. This is not only the result of the Treasury of the Union’s control over us but also that of the slow operation of the shift into regions, of spreading bureaucracy, and the proletarian screening to such an extent that we are no longer capable of organizing official dinner parties and receiving guests in a hospitable and refined manner.

In inviting all the representatives of the whole financial world to the GAT conference in Marrakesh in April 1994, Morocco provided a good example of the importance of hospitability in Islamic traditions. Some Western representatives left the hospitable party given by the then Moroccan Crown Prince Mohamed, (His Majesty King Mohamed VI, today), who received them like kings in a large tent whose floor was covered by thick and rich carpets, and before which fireworks were presented to them.

After describing the manner food is eaten in the Islamic world, it is time now to give a view of the food eaten by people there. The Islamic cuisine, like Islamic art, is easily noticed by a person at first sight in spite of its wide varieties. This diversity stems from the fact that every national group, from Mauritania to Blukhistan, has its specific dishes, which it contributes to this cuisine. During the time of Pilgrimage, Makkah turns into a melting pot where there is an ideal fusion of this Islamic cuisine. The common denominator of this cuisine is the dominance of the Turkish cuisine which is considered, in addition to the French and Chinese cuisines, as one of the three most well-known and delicious cuisines in the world. One can, actually, determine the degree of the Turkish cuisine’s influence on various national cuisines such as the Egyptian, the Syrian and the Lebanese ones.

All these cuisines share one common characteristic, for they are good examples of the Turkish tradition which lies in starting a meal with eating a large number of appetizers (“maze”), which are easily digested, cold or warm, such as vegetables, salads, fruits, melon, liver, brain, yoghurt, filled grapevine leaves, red beans, cucumber salad, etc. During her compilation of the recipes of the dishes (requiring much hand work), my wife found out that the number of appetizers was larger than that of the main dishes in the Islamic World in general.

It was customary in the land of Caliphs, sultans and princes that food was served in a succession ended with the soup ; people drank a cup of fruit juice between the main dishes consisting of fish and meat. However, things are different in the Arab World today, for the guest is attacked by successive dishes of meat as if his food on ordinary days does not usually include meat.

Everybody knows that Islam is not a vegetarian religion ; however, perhaps only a small number of non-Muslims know that it is forbidden for Muslims to eat meat of animals that are not slaughtered in accordance with the Islamic Sharia. According to the Sharia, the animal is slaughtered with a very sharp knife while it is laid on the ground.

In order that the animal does not suffer any psychological harm, it should be fed very well till the moment of slaughtering it comes. Similarly, it should not be exposed to see another animal being slaughtered or even see the knife being sharpened. More than that, one of the rules of killing an animal for food in Islam is that a butcher should hide the knife behind his back when he intends to kill the animal. A trained butcher cuts the throat, the oesophagus and neck arteries with one knife-strike so that the animal could lose consciousness all at once, bleed completely and die without agony.

In spite of all this, the Jewish community in Germany is allowed to slaughter its animals in conformity with the Jewish religion while Muslims are deprived of this right, which is ridiculous. In this context, the Holy Qur’an says: “… If a person is forced by necessity, without wilful disobedience, nor transgressing due limits, -thy lord is oft- forgiving, Most merciful”. (Surat Al-An`am, Verse 145). German authorities infer from this a “logical” conclusion which lies in the fact that if they prevent Muslims from slaughtering their animals according to the Islamic Sharia, the latter would be forced to eat the meat of animals not slaughtered in the Islamic way. But this conception relies on a big miscalculation, because the emergency mentioned in the Qur’an and which a Muslim may face lies in his attempt to avoid dying of hunger. Therefore, a Muslim in Germany is forced either to replace meat with vegetarian food or to buy meat from Jewish butchers.

The Qur’an warns against forbidding any food Allah has permitted people to eat : “Say : who hath forbidden the beautiful (gifts) of Allah, which he hath produced for His servants, and the things, clean and pure, (which He hath provided) for sustenance ? Say : they are, in the life of this world, for those who believe, and purely for them on the Day of Judgement. Thus do We explain the Signs in detail for those who know”. (Surat Al-A`raf, Verse 32). Therefore, it urges people to eat specific types of food, such as milk, dates, vegetable oils, grapes, and honey which it describes as a medicine “Where in healing for men” (Surat An-Nahl, Verse 69) ; that is why it is used in almost all types of pastry in the Islamic World, such as ‘Baqlava’.

I may briefly mention some of my favourite foods in the Islamic World. In hot regions, one needs a lot of drinks whose amount may reach 7 litres per day, particularly, when one has been living for 20 years with only one of his kidneys. This is why the drinks that first come to mind are milk with almond, cinnamon and ginger ; Turkish coffee, mint tea, and the coffee served at the reception halls of all hotels in the Middle East which makes one recover his vitality after having drunk three cups of it.

During our first visit to Makkah in 1982, we ordered, in a hotel, a pot of coffee, as it is customary in Germany when a group of friends drink coffee together. The more the waiter enquired again and again about our order so as to be sure, the more we blamed this on problems and difficulties related to language. Finally, he obediently brought us a Yemenite pot filled with Arabian coffee. Nevertheless, we, of course, could not drink all its contents as we felt that our hearts had started to beat quickly after having drunk the equivalent of half the size of the German mug.

We met our fate when we had the chance of witnessing the rituals of preparing green tea with mint leaves in the surrounding palms of Al-`Attuf oasis in the south of Algeria. I had given a lecture in the neighbouring oasis of Bani-Azjoun in 1989 on 10 points that I did not like in the Islamic World. After this, I spent the night alone in a hut among a few palm trees. In the morning, my host came carrying food for breakfast, a few glasses and boxes. He washed the pot with hot water, washed the tea leaves inside the pot with hot water, and got rid of the water; then, he added mint leaves, a lot of sugar and boiled water to tea. After that he started pouring tea in glasses from a height of about 0.5 meter, without spilling a single drop of it. I don’t think that there is a better way for a person to start the morning of a new day.

Among the Muslims’ dishes that I like most are : aubergines filled and fried, French cheese salad, chicken filled with candied almonds and nuts, sheep’s head, chick peas, Shish kebab, eastern rice, especially the Pakistani one (which contains a lot of cinnamon and raisins), Tabbula (a Lebanese and Syrian salad), sweet couscous, Al `Ashura, Al-Mihallabiya (a kind of dessert made of rice flour, milk and sugar) and Um `Ali.”