The Food Muslims are ordered to Eat in the Quran

When Allah, the Most High, addresses the believers in Surah Al-Baqarah (2:172) with the command — “O you who believe, eat of the good things We have provided for you and be grateful to Allah” — He is not offering a gentle suggestion. He is issuing a Divine directive that ties nourishment directly to faith, gratitude, and the stewardship of the body He entrusted to each of us. In this illuminating episode of The Deen Show, Sheikh Abdullah Oduro brings Islamic scholarship to a conversation that is painfully urgent: the Muslim community, like much of modern society, is facing a devastating epidemic of chronic, largely preventable disease — and the Quran and Sunnah already hold the roadmap out.

Understanding Tayyibat: The Quranic Standard for Clean, Wholesome Nourishment

“If Allah is mentioning it in the Quran, it is not something that should be supplemental — it is essential. There is a huge difference. Essential means you have to have it in your life in order to be your best self, in order to be someone that Allah is pleased with.” — Sheikh Abdullah Oduro

The Arabic term tayyibat, used in the Quranic command, carries a meaning far richer than the English word “good” conveys. Classical scholars explained it as that which is clean, pure, wholesome, and untampered — food in its natural state as Allah created it, free from artificial preservatives, harmful chemicals, and the adulteration driven by greed and profit. Sheikh Oduro draws a striking parallel: what the food industry today markets as “organic” or “natural” was simply the default reality during the time of the Prophet ﷺ. Animals grazed freely on the earth, crops grew under rain that came only by Allah’s permission, and food decomposed as it was designed to — a sign of its purity, not a flaw. The drive to extend shelf life, to inject preservatives, and to engineer taste at the expense of nutrition is, in essence, a corruption of the tayyibat that Allah commanded us to consume. The episode also highlights an important gap in our approach to health: conventional medical training rarely includes dedicated nutrition education — and just as Islamic scholarship has distinct specializations, so does healthcare. Seeking out practitioners who combine medical expertise with genuine nutritional knowledge, as the pioneering Dr. Madiha has done, is not a luxury but a necessity for informed, faith-aligned well-being.

• Tayyibat means clean, pure, and untampered food — not merely food that is halal in terms of slaughter alone
• Organic and naturally grown food aligns directly with the Islamic concept of consuming what Allah has “provided,” as He created it
• Preservatives, artificial additives, and ultra-processed ingredients corrupt the purity Allah commanded us to seek
• Nutrition is a distinct medical specialisation — seek qualified practitioners with both medical and nutritional expertise
• The three pillars of Islamic well-being are: wholesome eating, adequate sleep, and purposeful movement
• More than 95% of chronic diseases are linked to food choices, toxic ingredients, nutritional deficiencies, and physical inactivity
• Over 100 million Americans have diabetes or are pre-diabetic — a crisis built incrementally through daily food decisions

The Body as Amanah — Honouring Allah’s Trust Through Prevention

“Health is one of the most precious favors Allah has bestowed upon His servants — the most generous of gifts, the most plentiful of His bounties. Rather, health is the most precious of favors without exception. So it is fitting that whoever is granted a portion of this fortune, that he cherishes it and preserves it.” — Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah

The scholars of Islam understood centuries before modern nutrition science what data is only now quantifying. Prevention — al-wiqayah — was always prioritised over cure in the Islamic tradition. The Prophet ﷺ urged believers to “take advantage of five before five,” naming health explicitly among the blessings most carelessly squandered. He described health and free time as the two great gifts people most take for granted — and that warning has never been more relevant than in an age of instant gratification, ultra-processed convenience food, and sedentary living. Understanding the body as an amanah, a sacred trust temporarily placed in our care, reframes every meal as a moment of spiritual accountability: not a trivial personal choice, but an act of either honouring or neglecting what Allah has given us. Sheikh Oduro reminds us that one of the most important battlegrounds of jihad an-nafs — the struggle against the lower self — is the kitchen. The choices we make when opening the refrigerator, reading a food label, or deciding whether to cook a fresh meal or reach for a packaged one are daily declarations of whether we are grateful, conscious believers or people who consume without reflection. For Muslim communities navigating the pressures of modernity, this episode is a clarion call: healing begins not in the clinic, but in the choices made at every meal — and pursuing clean, wholesome nourishment, in full awareness of the One who provided it, is itself a profound and rewarding act of worship.