title: You Are How You Eat

I grew up in a household where dinner time was and remains to be an integral part of family life. As a young child and through my teenage years all the members of the family would sit down together to eat dinner in the evening after work and school. At weekends, if we were all in, we all ate together at lunch time AND dinner time. We would set the table and clear the table together. The television would be off and nobody answered the phone. You didn’t leave the table until everyone had finished and you TALKED to one another. It was and still is, a chance for us all to sit down together amidst our busy lives.

It may surprise you to know that despite this practice of eating together being an important Sunnah of our religion, my family continues to do this MORE than many Muslim families do today. When you consider that eating together like this is a recommendation from our Prophet s.a.w, it may surprise you even more to know that my family who do this, are not Muslim.

In today’s society the family unit has become increasingly disintegrated and disjointed. This lack of ‘family time’ and structure to family life contributes to many of the problems we see in our world – including truancy, crime, gang life, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, promiscuity and underage sex. You may be thinking “ but we are Muslims, we don’t do these things!” Not so I am afraid. What is true is that Muslims and everyone else in this world SHOULD not be doing these things. As an Ummah we should not be naïve to assume that we are perfect or not plagued by these issues – we are. A high proportion of today’s prison inmates are Muslim. A growing proportion of our youth are drinking, dabbling and dealing in drugs and becoming increasingly promiscuous. We are becoming victims to violence, abuse, anger and lack of respect. We can deny it until we are blue in the face but the statistics speak for themselves.

A great deal of these problems are due to a lack of instruction and teaching of our religion to our teenagers but without a proper family unit to be part of and to come home to, our teenagers are not developing a feeling of worth about being our sons or daughters and are fast losing their respect for elders.

Allah s.w.t cares about us which is why He revealed the Qur’an to us. He also knows all things about us as individuals and as a race and He knows what we are capable of doing to ourselves. The importance of the family unit and how we should care about one another both in this life and the next, is emphasized with the ultimate consequences that we can face:

‘”Oh you who have believed, save yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is men and stones, over which are (appointed) angels, stern (and) severe, who do not disobey Allah in what He orders them and (who) do (precisely) what they are commanded.”
[Qur'an, Surah At-Tahrim 66 -6]

If you feel that your family daily life is disjointed and without worthwhile time and interest in one another, you are probably right. By worthwhile time together I don’t mean just sleeping in the same house or lounging in front of the television, I mean proper daily time spent together talking and paying attention to each other’s lives and needs.

So what will we do about this?? Well whether we work or study or run the household, there are 2 things as humans that we ALL do: sleeping and eating!! The favorite past-times of many of us no less! But seeing as I’m not going to recommend that you all pile into one bed at night, the simplest solution to beginning to re-structure the family unit comes in the form of a table, some chairs, plates and food.

The practice of eating together is a Sunnah – meaning it is from the example of the Prophet s.a.w. and is a highly recommended practice for every family and every person. Sitting down together at least once a day enables us to interact with one another, to share the blessing of the food we have been given and to begin to repair the problems plaguing our society. You may be thinking that surely I’m not suggesting eating dinner together will suddenly cure gang culture and crime – no I’m not! But what I am saying is that if we invested more time in one another with small baby steps, then our babies would not grow up so ahead of themselves and so headed for destruction.

Allah s.w.t tells us in the Qur’an, his direct word to us:

“The Life of this world is but play and amusement,
and the abode of the Hereafter is best for those who fear (Allah).”
[Qur'an Al-An'am 6:32]

So we should take heed of this. This is a stark warning as to how our distractions of daily life – be it the X-Box, Playstation, Internet, television, social life or any other such thing is but ONLY an amusement – amusement meaning something that feels good, is enjoyable but has no essential benefit to us.

If your children, husband, brother, sister, mother or father is too distracted to sit down and eat with the rest of the household then this has to stop. Parents need to take the lead in the household and instill rules for meal time that means that they regain the much needed authority in the home.

In the following hadith we can see clear instruction on the benefits of dining together. Some of the Prophet s.a.w’ s companions complained once that they ate but were not satisfied. The Prophet (S) said, “Perhaps you eat separately.” They said, “Yes.” He said, “If you gather together and mention Allah’s name, you will be blessed in it.” (Abu Dawud)

You may be thinking that how on earth are you going to get everyone to sit down and eat properly together? Well unsurprisingly Islam also has advice on this of course:

“I was a boy under the care of Allah’s Apostle and my hand used to go around the dish while I was eating. So the Prophet (SAW) said to me, -O boy! Mention the Name of Allah (Bismillah) and eat with your right hand, and eat of the dish what is nearer to you.” Since then I have applied those instructions when eating.” (Bukhari)

Ok so this is the first thing to establish – eating practice according to the Sunnah with remembrance of Allah s.w.t. Without this remembrance, our actions will be empty and fruitless, no matter how hard we try to pretend otherwise. If we are to fix the family in our society, then we need to do this with Allah s.w.t in mind.

But hang on a minute, eating according to the Sunnah is all very well if you manage to get everyone at the table – but what if getting everyone together in one place at the same time is near on mission impossible? The following tips and rules will help to rectify the problem with a bit of patience and perseverance.

# 1 : Be clear. This means as a parent especially, the new rule you instill in your household of everyone eating dinner together needs to be communicated to everyone clearly and with positive explanation. It also needs to be non-negotiable. This means not budging, caving or weakening with any excuses thrown at you and on this note, take us nicely on to:

# 2: NOT cooking different meals for different people and indulging whims and desires. If hubby says he wants a good ol’ curry, little miss wants pizza and your youngest wants fish fingers – do NOT cook them all! As a wife or mother or daughter, the majority of the cooking in a household can often fall to us. But you aren’t a chef and your home isn’t a drive-thru restaurant! If you are cooking the family meal, ask everyone what they would like to all eat, decide upon something and cook that and nothing else. If someone wants something else, then they need to cook it themselves (which they probably won’t!) or eat what they are given. By cooking a number of different meals in one go, this often results in food being ready at different times and people eating at different times and in children in particular can result in spoilt behavior, self-indulgence and food fussiness.

# 3: Turn off the electronic distractions! This means TV, internet, laptop, and X-Box are OFF at dinner time and not turned on again until after the meal is over. And the phone – oh my Lord the telephone, that wonderful invention….if it rings during the meal, do NOT get up and answer it and do not respond to that text message! It is simply not necessary and everyone’s attention should be on the people right in front of them and not on those at the other end of a line. If it’s an emergency, whoever is ringing you will leave a message or call back – otherwise, they can wait. Meal time is family time.

If your child refuses to turn off the television or games console, remind them they can catch up with whatever programme they are missing later on and if all else fails, disconnect the offending box. Ok you may not be popular but they will soon get the picture and it will be worth it – and as a parent, the authority should always be with you, not your child so letting them eat their dinner in front of their favorite computer game only sends them the message that you believe the Playstation/TV to be more important to your child’s life than you and that your relationship with them takes second place to a game of Grand Theft Auto. This in turn decreases their self-esteem and contributes to bad behavior and lack of respect.. Let them know that you want their full attention because they are important to you and an important part of the family.

# 4: Include everyone in the meal and table preparation. This means that even if you are the one cooking, get others involved in setting the table, pouring drinks and clearing up. It is not the duty of just one person to contribute to the practice of eating together, it is everyone in the family and none of us are too young or old to learn that. Children in particular can thrive when given tasks and the elder members of the family can be reminded of the duties of the household.

# 5: TALK!! Sounds obvious right? None of us want to eat in silence and sitting together to eat should not be a chore. So talk to one another, ask about each other’s day, activities and use the time to plan future activities or address any family issues.

By implementing a practice of eating at least one meal a day together, you will see an improvement in your family’s communication, synergy and relationships. By strengthening the family unit this way and placing its importance back at the top of our priorities, we will in due course cause our youth to value the family unit also and increase the level of respect that they have for themselves and for others. Then maybe we can begin to tackle some of the issues we are facing as a society and begin to feed ourselves not just with food nutrition but also with spiritual and emotional nutrition.