The Beloved Foods of Our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
The Beloved Foods of Our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
The Holy Prophet ﷺ was not particular about any specific type of food. Whatever was available, he would eat it without complaint or criticism. Hazrat Abu Hurairah (RA) narrates that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ never found fault in any food. If he desired it, he would eat it, and if he disliked it, he would simply leave it.
(Muslim)
Bread:
The Prophet ﷺ usually ate barley bread and sometimes wheat bread, but he never ate fine, sifted flour (maida) bread. Hazrat Sahl bin Sa’d (RA) was asked whether the Prophet ﷺ ever ate refined flour bread. He replied that until the end of the Prophet’s ﷺ life, refined flour was never presented before him. When asked how barley bread was prepared in those days without sieves, he said:
“They would blow on the flour to remove the coarse husks and bake the remaining dough.”
(Bukhari Sharif)
Hazrat Yusuf bin Abdullah bin Salam (RA) reports that he once saw the Prophet ﷺ take a piece of barley bread, place a date on it, and say, “This is its curry,” and then he ate it.
(Abu Dawood)
Meat:
The Prophet ﷺ loved meat and called it “the leader of foods.” He enjoyed both cooked and roasted meat.
Hazrat Abdullah bin Harith (RA) said: “We ate roasted meat with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in the mosque.” (Shama’il al-Tirmidhi)
Hazrat Jabir (RA) narrates the incident when a woman gifted the Prophet ﷺ two loaves of bread and some cooked meat. Hazrat Fatimah (RA) covered it and sent a message to the Prophet ﷺ. When he arrived and uncovered the dish, it was miraculously full. She realized this was a blessing from Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said,
“O my daughter, Allah has made you like Maryam (AS), who would also receive food from Allah without measure.”
They all ate to their fill, yet the bowl remained full. Hazrat Fatimah (RA) then distributed the food among the neighbors.
(Khasais al-Kubra)
The Prophet ﷺ preferred the foreleg portion of the meat. Hazrat Abu Hurairah (RA) narrates that once a piece of roasted lamb was brought to the Prophet ﷺ, and he specifically asked for the foreleg, which he ate by biting with his teeth.
(Shama’il al-Tirmidhi)
The Prophet ﷺ also said:
“The best part of meat is the back portion.”
(Tirmidhi)
Chicken:
Hazrat Abu Musa (RA) said: “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ eating chicken meat.”
(Bukhari & Muslim)
Fish:
Hazrat Jabir (RA) narrated the incident of the “Battle of the Coast” (Jaish al-Khabt), where the companions came across a giant fish named Anbar. They ate from it for half a month. When they returned and mentioned it to the Prophet ﷺ, he said,
“Eat from it, for it is provision that Allah has given you.”
He even ate from that same fish when some was brought to him.
(Bukhari Sharif)
Rabbit:
The Prophet ﷺ also ate rabbit meat. Hazrat Anas (RA) said: “We caught a rabbit, slaughtered it, and sent its legs to the Prophet ﷺ, and he accepted and ate them.”
(Bukhari Sharif)
Olive Oil:
The Prophet ﷺ said:
“Eat olive oil and use it for massage, for it comes from a blessed tree.”
(Tirmidhi)
He also liked to dip his bread in olive oil.
Vinegar:
The Prophet ﷺ loved vinegar and praised it highly. Hazrat Jabir (RA) narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said:
“What a good condiment vinegar is!”
(Tirmidhi)
Hazrat Umm Hani (RA) reported that when she told the Prophet ﷺ she had nothing except dry bread and vinegar, he said:
“Bring it. A house with vinegar is never poor.”
(Shama’il al-Tirmidhi)
Pumpkin:
The Prophet ﷺ greatly loved pumpkin. Hazrat Anas (RA) said:
“A tailor invited the Prophet ﷺ to a meal of barley bread and broth that contained pumpkin and dried meat. I saw the Prophet ﷺ picking out the pumpkin pieces, and from that day, I too began to love pumpkin.”
(Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi)
Tharid (Broth with Bread):
Tharid — bread soaked in meat broth — was among the Prophet’s ﷺ favorite dishes. Hazrat Ibn Abbas (RA) said:
“The most beloved food to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was tharid.”
(Abu Dawood)
He also said:
“The superiority of Aisha (RA) over other women is like the superiority of tharid over other foods.”
(Shama’il al-Tirmidhi)
Dates and Barley Flour:
Dates were a staple food in Arabia, and the Prophet ﷺ praised them highly, especially the ‘Ajwah dates. Hazrat Anas (RA) said:
“The Prophet ﷺ held the wedding feast of Safiyyah (RA) with dates and barley.”
(Tirmidhi)
Cucumber and Dates:
Hazrat Abdullah bin Ja‘far (RA) said:
“I saw the Prophet ﷺ eating cucumber with fresh dates.”
(Shama’il al-Tirmidhi)
He also ate melon with dates, saying that the coolness of one balances the warmth of the other.
(Mishkat Sharif)
Ghee, Butter, and Cheese:
The Prophet ﷺ ate ghee (clarified butter), butter, and cheese. Hazrat Umm Aws (RA) once presented him a pot of ghee. He blessed it, and it miraculously stayed full for a long time.
(Khasais al-Kubra)
Grapes and Fruits:
The Prophet ﷺ loved fresh fruits, especially grapes. Hazrat Ibn Abbas (RA) said:
“I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ eating grapes from a bunch, placing it in his mouth and pulling out the stem.”
(Madarij al-Nubuwwah)
The companions would present new seasonal fruits to the Prophet ﷺ before eating them themselves. He would pray:
“O Allah! Bless our fruits, bless our city of Madinah, and bless our measures of food. O Allah! Just as Ibrahim (AS) prayed for Makkah, I pray twice as much for Madinah.”
(Tirmidhi)
Moderation in Food:
Although the Prophet ﷺ enjoyed many types of food, he always maintained moderation. He never ate excessively and often preferred simplicity over luxury. His eating habits were filled with gratitude, humility, and balance — a perfect model for a healthy and spiritual life.
May Allah grant us the ability to follow the blessed Sunnah of our beloved Prophet ﷺ in eating what is pure, lawful, and moderate.
Ameen.
