بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Imam
al-Ghazālī on
Protecting the Stomach
Translated
by Mahdi Lock[1]
Section Five: The
Stomach and Its Protection
Then you must – and may
Allah grant you success – protect your stomach and rectify it; it is indeed the
most difficult of organs for the one who strives (mujtahid) to rectify.
It is the most troublesome and the most distracting; it is the most harmful and
has the most widespread effect. This is because it is the fountainhead and
source; from it all the states of the other limbs come to be: strength and
weakness, abstinence (ʿiffah) and willfulness (jimāḥ), and so
forth.
Therefore, you must firstly
safeguard it against the unlawful and the doubtful and secondly against going
to excess with regards to the lawful, if your intention and desire is to
worship Allah the Exalted.
As for the unlawful and the
doubtful, you are obliged to look into them because of three matters:
The first is being wary of the Fire of Hell; Allah, Glorified
and Exalted, has said, “Those who consume the property of orphans wrongfully
consume nothing in their bellies except fire. They will roast in a Searing
Blaze.” [An-Nisāʾ 4:10]
And the Prophet, may Allah
bless him and grant him peace, said, {The Fire is more deserving of every piece
of flesh that grows out of ill-gotten property.}[2]
The second is that the consumer of the unlawful and the doubtful
is repelled and not granted the enabling success (tawfīq) to perform worship, and thus only
those who are pure and purified are fit to serve Allah the Exalted.
I have said: has not Allah the Exalted prohibited those in a
state of major impurity (junub) from entering His house[3]
and the one in a state of minor impurity (muḥdith) from
touching His Book? The Almighty has said, “…nor in a state of major impurity
– unless you are travelling – until you have washed yourselves completely” [an-Nisāʾ 4:43] and the Exalted One has also said, “No one
may touch it except the purified” [al-Wāqiʿah 56:79],
and this is despite the fact that to be in either state of impurity is
permissible, so what about someone who is immersed in the squalor of the
unlawful and the filth of ill-gotten property and doubtful matters; when will
he be summoned to the service of Allah the Almighty and His noble remembrance,
Glorified is He? That will absolutely never happen.
Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh al-Rāzī, may Allah have mercy on him, said, ‘Obedience is
stored in Allah’s storehouses; their key is supplication and the teeth of that
key is the lawful. If the key doesn’t have any teeth, the door won’t be opened,
and if the door to the storehouse can’t be opened, how will one arrive at the
obedience that lies therein?!’
The third is that the one who consumes the unlawful and the
doubtful is cut off from doing good, even if he is destined to do good…for it
is rejected from him and not accepted from him. Therefore, he obtains nothing
from it except toil and hardship, and the taking up of his time. He, may Allah
bless him and grant him peace, said, {How many people stand in the night to
pray and all they obtain from it is sleeplessness? How many people fast and all
they obtain from it are hunger and thirst?}[4]
It is on the authority of
Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allah be pleased with both of them, that he
said, ‘Allah does not accept the prayer of a person who has something unlawful
inside of him.’ This is what this is.[5]
As for going to excess with
the lawful, indeed it is the plague of the ordinary worshippers and the
calamity of the people of ijtihād. I have
reflected on the matter and I have found ten evils that are the foundations of
this matter:
1) Plenteous eating makes the heart hard and removes its
light; it has been related from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him
peace, that he said, {Do not kill the heart with plenteous eating and drinking,
for indeed the heart dies the same way crops do if too much water is poured on
them.}
Some of the
righteous have likened the stomach to a boiling cooking pot sitting under the
heart, with steam rising up towards it; an abundance of steam will distress it
and blacken it.
2) Plenteous eating is a tribulation for the other limbs
and organs, and it provokes them and stirs them up towards excess and
corruption. Indeed, when a man is wantonly satiated, his eye desires to look at
that which does not concern him, either something unlawful or to look at
something excessively, the ear desires to listen to it, the tongue desires to
articulate it, the private parts have desire for it and the foot walks towards
it. If he’s hungry, all the limbs and organs are calm and still; they don’t
crave anything nor are they enthusiastic about it. Al-Ustādh Abū Jaʿfar, may Allah have mercy on him, said, ‘Indeed the
stomach is an organ; if it is hungry then all the other organs and limbs are
satiated – i.e. they are still and don’t demand anything of you – and if it is
satiated then all the other organs and limbs are hungry.’
In summary,
a man’s actions and statements are according to his food and drink; if the
unlawful goes in then the unlawful comes out and if excess goes in then excess
comes out, as if food is the seed of actions, and actions are the plant that
manifests out if it.
3) Plenteous eating decreases one’s understanding and knowledge,
for indeed gluttony removes intelligence. Ad-Dāranī, may Allah
have mercy on him, spoke the truth when he said, ‘Whenever you want something
from this world or the Hereafter…don’t eat until you’ve finished it, for indeed
eating changes the intellect.’[6]
4) Plenteous eating decreases one’s worship, because when
a person eats a lot his body becomes heavy, he struggles to keep his eyes open
and his limbs become languid. He does nothing – even if he diligently strives –
but sleep like a discarded corpse. It has been said, ‘If you are paunchy,
consider yourself chronically ill.’
And it has
been mentioned regarding Yaḥyā, peace be upon him, that Iblīs appeared before him and he had meat and grapes and the like hanging
off him, so Yaḥyā said to him, ‘What is this?’ He replied, ‘These are
the desires with which I trap the children of Adam.’ He said, ‘Do you find
anything for me in there?’ He replied, ‘No, except that you satiated yourself
that one night and thus we made it too difficult for you to pray.’ Yaḥyā, peace be
upon him, then said, ‘I will certainly never satiate myself after that.’ Iblīs replied, ‘I will certainly never advise anyone after
that.’
This is
regarding someone who satiated himself one night in his life, so how about
someone who never feels hungry for a single night in his life and then desires
to engage in worship?
Sufyān, may Allah have mercy on him, said, ‘Worship is an
occupation; its shops are seclusion and its tools are hunger.’
5) Through plenteous eating, one loses the sweetness of
worship. Abū Bakr as-Ṣiddīq, may Allah be pleased with him, said, ‘I haven’t
satiated myself since I became Muslim; I find the sweetness of worshipping my
Lord. And I haven’t quenched my thirst since I became Muslim, desiring to meet
my Lord.’
These are
the attributes of those who have had the veil lifted, and Abū Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, was someone who
had the veil lifted, and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
indicated this when he said, {Abū Bakr is
not superior to you by virtue of a fast or a prayer. Rather, it is something
that is established in his heart.}[7]
Ad-Dārinī said,
‘Worship is sweetest when my stomach is clinging to my back.’
6) There is the danger of falling into the doubtful and
the unlawful, because the lawful does not come to you except as nourishment,
and we have related from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
that he said, {The lawful does not come to you except as nourishment, while the
unlawful comes to you randomly and haphazardly.}
7) The heart and the body are preoccupied by it. First,
there is its acquisition. Secondly, its preparation. Thirdly, its consumption.
Fourthly, one has to evacuate it and rid oneself of it. Fifthly, one has to
become safe from it, because some harm from it may appear on the body, or
rather harms and illnesses. He, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said,
{The foundation of every disease is al-baradah – i.e. at-tukhmah[8]-
and the foundation of every remedy is al-azmah}[9]
i.e. hunger and diet (ḥimyah).
It is on
the authority of Mālik bin Dīnār that he
would say, ‘You people; I have relieved myself so frequently that I feel shy
before my Lord and my two angels. If only Allah had put my sustenance in some
pebbles that I could suck on until I die.’
In summary,
the seeking of this worldly life, the hoping for people and the wasting of time
because of plenteous eating is not something hidden.
8) What one obtains from the affairs of the Hereafter and
the severity of the pangs of death; it has been related in the reports (al-akhbār) that the
severity of the pangs of death is according to the pleasures of one’s life, so
whoever had more of the latter will get more of the former.
9) Less reward in the end; Allah the Exalted has said, “You
dissipated the good things you had in your worldly life…” and the rest of
the āyah.[10]
Thus, to
the extent that you take from the pleasures of this life, your pleasures in the
Hereafter will be decreased, and we can see this meaning when Allah the Exalted
displayed this worldly life to our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him
peace, and said to him, {And I will decrease anything away from your
Hereafter.}[11]
He made this exclusively for him, which means that for those besides him there
will be a decrease, except for those upon whom Allah bestows His favour.
It has been
narrated that Khālid ibn
al-Walīd hosted ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and prepared some food for him. ʿUmar said, ‘This is for us, so what about the poor Emigrants who died
and did not satiate themselves with barley bread?’ Khālid replied, ‘They have Paradise, o Commander of the Believers.’ ʿUmar then said, ‘If they have attained Paradise, and
this is our portion of this worldly life, then they have clearly set themselves
apart from us.’
It has also
been narrated that ʿUmar, may
Allah be pleased with him, felt thirsty one day, so he asked for some water. A
man thus gave him a vessel of water in which some dates had been thrown in.
When ʿUmar had
brought it close to his mouth he found the water to be cold and sweet, so he
refrained, and said, ‘Ah’. The man then said, ‘By Allah, I did not diminish it
sweetness, o Commander of the Believers.’ ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, replied, ‘That is what prevented me
from drinking it. Woe to you! If it were not for the Hereafter, I would share
with you in your way of living.’
10)
Confinement
and reckoning, and the blame and censure that occur when one leaves off
etiquette by engaging in excess and following one’s desires; the lawful of this
worldly life is a reckoning and its unlawful is a punishment, and its
embellishment leads to destruction.
These are
the ten, and just one of them would suffice for the one who looks at himself.
So, mujtahid, you must be extremely cautious when it comes to
nourishment so that you don’t fall into something unlawful or doubtful, thus
making your punishment necessary. Then you must restrict yourself with regards
to the lawful to that which enables you to worship Allah the Exalted, and then
you won’t fall into some evil that will have you remain in confinement and
reckoning, and with Allah the Glorified is every success.
[1] Translated from the Imam’s book Minhāj al-ʿĀbidīn ilā Jannat Rabbi il-ʿĀlamīn (Jeddah: Dār al-Minhāj, 1432/2011), p.128-133
[2] Narrated by al-Ḥākim (4/127) and
Ibn Ḥibbān (1723) on the authority of Jābir ibn ʿAbdillāh, may Allah be pleased
with both of them, as well as at-Tirmidhī (614) on the authority of Kaʿb ibn
ʿUjrah, may Allah be pleased with him.
[3] (tn): i.e. the masjid
[4] Narrated by Ibn
Khuzaymah (1997), Ibn Ḥibbān (3481), al-Ḥākim (1/431) and an-Nasāʾī in al-Kubrā
(3236) on the authority of Abū Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him.
[5] (tn): The Imam returns to this
topic and goes into further detail in the pages that follow the coming
discussion on going to excess with the lawful, and he also refers the reader to
his book Kitāb al-Ḥalāl wa al-Ḥarām from his Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm ad-Dīn.
[6] Narrated by Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq (34/154)
[7] Narrated by al-Ḥakīm
at-Tirmidhī in Nawādir al-Uṣūl (1299) from the
statement of Bakr ibn ʿAbdillāh al-Muzanī, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on him. One can also see Kashf
al-Khafāʾ (2/190)
[8] (tn): i.e.
indigestion, dyspepsia, illness from overeating (Hans Wehr)
[9] Imam Murtaḍā az-Zabīdī, may Allah have mercy on him,
said in Ittiḥāf as-Sādat al-Muttaqīn [his commentary on Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm ad-Dīn] (7:400), ‘This has been narrated by
al-Khallāl
from the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah with the wording, {Al-Azm
(hunger and diet) is medicine, and the stomach is the home of disease.
Habituate a body to what it is accustomed.} As for the first part…it has been
narrated by Ibn ʿAdī in al-Kāmil for Ḍuʿafāʾ ar-Rijāl (2/83) and (3/114).
[10] (tn): This is Sūrat al-Aḥqāf 46:20, the rest of
which is: “…and enjoyed yourself in it. So today you are being repaid with
the punishment of humiliation for being arrogant in the earth without any right
and for being deviators.”
[11] The ḥadīth in
which this worldly life was displayed to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and
grant him peace, has been narrated by al-Ḥākim (3/55) and ad-Dārimī in his Sunan
(79) on the authority of ʿAbdullah
ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, may Allah be pleased with both of them. As for
the part that the author has mentioned, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on
him, it’s meaning has been narrated by Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilyah (2/136) mursalan
[i.e. in the chain of
transmission someone is missing after the level of Tābiʿ] from the statement of al-Ḥasan in his letter to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbdul ʿAzīz, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on both of
them.
