The Etiquette of Eating and Drinking in Islam

A look at islamic eating etiquette in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

Even the most ordinary act of the day – sitting down to eat – was not left outside the scope of Islamic teaching. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ treated the manner of eating as a matter of religious discipline in its own right, and a large body of hadith preserves specific instructions covering everything from how to begin a meal to how to end one, gathered by later scholars into chapters on adab al-ta’aam, the etiquette of food, in classical hadith collections such as Imam al-Bukhari’s “Al-Adab al-Mufrad.”

Islamic eating etiquette: Beginning With the Name of Allah

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim has the Prophet ﷺ instructing a young companion, Umar ibn Abi Salamah, who was eating carelessly from across the plate: “Say Bismillah, eat with your right hand, and eat from what is nearest to you.” Three separate instructions delivered in a single short correction, and all three became foundational elements of Islamic eating etiquette – the invocation of Allah’s name before starting, the use of the right hand specifically, and eating from the section of a shared dish closest to oneself rather than reaching across it. A separate hadith recorded by Abu Dawud adds that if a person forgets to say Bismillah at the start of the meal, they should say it as soon as they remember, using the fuller phrase, “In the name of Allah, at its beginning and its end.”

Not Filling the Stomach: The Prophet’s ﷺ Own Practice

A hadith recorded by al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah has the Prophet ﷺ describing the stomach as “the worst vessel a person can fill,” and recommending that if a person must fill it, a third be reserved for food, a third for drink, and a third left empty for breath – a guideline scholars have long cited as an early articulation of moderation in eating, centuries before the language of nutrition existed to describe it the same way. Aisha (RA) is separately reported to have said that the household of Muhammad ﷺ sometimes went a month without lighting a cooking fire, living instead on dates and water – an account preserved not to romanticize hunger, but as evidence of how little importance was placed on abundance at the table relative to sufficiency.

Not Eating or Drinking While Reclining

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari has the Prophet ﷺ stating plainly, “I do not eat while reclining” – a posture associated in his time with the relaxed, self-indulgent manner of aristocracy and kings, which he deliberately avoided even once his own circumstances had changed considerably from the poverty of his early years in Mecca. Scholars have read this less as a rule about literal posture and more as an example of his broader habit of eating simply and without display, regardless of what he could by then have afforded.

Not Criticizing Food

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim states that the Prophet ﷺ never criticized food – if he liked something, he ate it, and if he disliked it, he simply left it without comment. This single practice is cited repeatedly in classical works of adab as a model for handling food a person personally dislikes, treated as a matter of basic courtesy toward whoever prepared or provided the meal, rather than a small or incidental habit.

Drinking in Three Breaths, Not One

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, narrated by Anas ibn Malik, describes the Prophet ﷺ drinking in three separate breaths rather than in a single continuous gulp, removing the vessel from his mouth each time to breathe, and stating that this was more satisfying to thirst, easier to digest, and better for the body – a specific practical instruction scholars of prophetic medicine, such as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah in his “Al-Tibb al-Nabawi,” discussed at length alongside the general Islamic discouragement of drinking directly from a container’s spout or in a single uninterrupted draught.

Closing the Meal With Gratitude

Just as a meal begins with Allah’s name, it is meant to close with an expression of gratitude toward Him. A hadith recorded by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi preserves the specific supplication the Prophet ﷺ used after eating: “Praise be to Allah, an abundant, good, and blessed praise, that is neither insufficient, nor unneeded, nor unable to be dispensed with, O our Lord.” Scholars have pointed to the structure of the meal – opened by naming Allah, closed by praising Him – as a small daily illustration of how thoroughly Islamic teaching worked to fold the remembrance of Allah into the most ordinary, repeated moments of a person’s day, rather than confining it to formal acts of worship alone.

Eating Together Rather Than Alone

A hadith recorded by Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah describes companions telling the Prophet ﷺ that they ate without feeling satisfied, and his response was to ask whether they perhaps ate separately from one another. When they confirmed they did, he instructed them to gather together over their food and to mention Allah’s name over it, promising that it would then be blessed for them. Scholars cite this hadith as evidence that Islamic teaching treated communal eating as spiritually and practically preferable to eating in isolation, tying the blessing of a meal not only to the invocation said over it but to the act of sharing the table itself. This preference is reflected in a broader body of hadith encouraging generosity with food – a companion is recorded advising that if a person’s food is enough for two, they should invite a third, and if enough for four, a fifth or sixth, since sharing what one has, rather than treating a meal as a strictly private matter, was consistently framed in the hadith literature as part of what made the food itself blessed rather than merely sufficient.

Seen in this light, islamic eating etiquette is treated less as an isolated rule and more as part of a coherent whole.

For a closely related topic, see our discussion of Husn al-Khuluq: The Prophetic Model of Good Character. Readers wanting to verify the primary sources directly can consult Quran.com for the full Quranic text and hadith references.