A Lesson Learned From a Cup of French Vanilla
Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 2:20 PM in Character
A friend of mine invited me and some dudes to his place for dinner and with dessert served his own killer rendition of French vanilla cappuccino. The perfect after dinner treat, each guest was passed around his own steaming hot cup of bliss. As soon he poured out my share, one brother mentioned something that I had no knowledge of.
“Did you know you’re not supposed to blow into your drink?” He said.
“Really?” A handful of the guys were surprised, not knowing anything about this. “Forreal?”
“Yeah, there’s a Hadith on it,” our friend explained.
I took his word for it and held my hot drink, pondering over this Prophetic prohibition. Immediately after hearing this and thinking in my mind that I should no longer blow into my drink, I picked up my cup and blew a long slow breeze into it, completely forgetting that I was just told not to.
My friend was amused. “See? We’re so used it!” he said, laughing at how deeply engrained the habit was for me.
After that day, I read the section in Minhaj al-Muslim entitled Ettiquette for Food and Drink. As I went down the list prophetic eating habits, it became clear that not only do I do a poor job of following them, a lot of Muslims living wealthily in the West and around the world today share this problem with me. Not only are we deficient in our worhship and manners with one another, we are absolutely terrible eaters!
The Prophet (SAW) said “If we eat, we do not eat to our fill;” we eat beyond our fill and then some. He told us to eat together, we eat seperately from our family. He never complained or criticized food he didn’t like; we complain about good food all the time. He instructed us to say Bismillah before eating; we forget. He never ate reclined, we eat laying on the couch. He told us to lick our fingers and wipe our plates clean; we take way too much and throw away entire portions. The list goes on.
We all want to be that Ideal/Balanced/Super Muslim worker, parent, child, student, husband, striver, character, or worshiper. But how many of us try to be the Ideal/Balanced/Super Muslim Eater? 
You are what you eat. Whether it’s getting in shape and losing the gut or difficulty in waking up for tahajjud, we should consider the effects food has us, pushing to be more like the Prophet (SAW) in eating and drinking just as much as any other habit. A poem from Minhaj al-Muslim:
If the hands are stretched to the food
I will not be the quickest among them
as the greediest of the people is the quickest among them.
16 Comment(s)
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Here was what I had found from Minhaj al-Muslim.
For more manners on eating/drinking, check this online version of Etiquette For Eating and Drinking:
http://www.islaam.net/main/display.php?id=1213&category=7
SaqibSaab | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
As Salaamu Alaykum,
JazakAllahu Khair, for the very good reminder at the right time!
muslimah | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
Did you know you’re not supposed to slurp either? I’m so glad that’s a hadith, slurping is a rather disgusting noise.
Faiez | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
Great reminder!
Siraaj
Siraaj Muhammad | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
Eid is coming up. That’ll be a perfect time to practice or to put our eating habits to test. Don’t go all out on that Qurbani meat. Especially Goat’s brain (Maghaz) and Liver (Kalagee).
Everyone is getting only one cup of french Vanilla next time. No more seconds
Haroon Malik | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
What have I done?! I regret writing this post now…
SaqibSaab | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
i’ll like your fingers.
weird guy | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
fail, PK.
SaqibSaab | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
Very useful post akhi. But do you know why we are not supposed to blow in our cups of vanilla or any other drinks?
Edit: I put the Hadith and the section from Minhaj al-Muslim up above. Thanks for reminding me. - Saqib
Youssef | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
jazakallahu khair.
Olivia | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
Whats the reasoning behind not blowing into our drinking cups?
Hish'm | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
I guess people mean to ask is there a reason of wisdom behind why the Prophet (SAW) said not to.
I don’t know of any and didn’t see any from the one book I found. The bro who told me the Hadith suggested maybe it’s to teach us patience. Some other web sources said not to because of germs spreading when sharing drinks and what not.
There’s no reason mentioned in the Hadith about it, so for us, this’ll be one of those things where we say, “because the Prophet (SAW) said so,” and just wait for our drinks to cool down a bit. W’Allahu ‘Alim.
Saqib
SaqibSaab | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
i heart saqibsaab
muhi | Dec 9, 2007 | Reply
“You are what you eat. Whether it’s getting in shape and losing the gut or difficulty in waking up for tahajjud, we should consider the effects food has us,”
http://www.sacredlearning.org/audio/general/2007/avoiding_the_pit.m3u
manmade | Dec 10, 2007 | Reply
I was at this summer camp where I was possibly the only Muslim there. I guess someon at my table was talking about eating, especially overeating. I said, “There’s a piece of wisdom in my culture (read: Hadith) that says you should fill one-third of your stomach with food, one-third with water, and one-third with air.”
People looked at me like I was crazy. They’re like, “One-third? That’s it?” They were skeptical and they wanted to know how one knows that he or she is one-third full.
It reminds me of another hadith that says Islam began as something strange, and will become something strange again so good tidings to the strangers.
Asad123 | Dec 19, 2007 | Reply
With respect to why we should not blow on\into our food or drink…I read & heard that the air you breathe out contains wastes and carbon dioxide therefore it wouldn’t be the healthiest thing to be breathing that out onto our food and drinks etc. Mind you we should always follow the Prophet’s examples, traditions and hadiths regardless of wether we know the reason or not. I admit it makes more sense to us when we have the reason and explanation behind it. And there always is great wisdom behind what Allah(swt)and the Prophet(pbuh)tells and advises us although we may not know the reason right then and there. Thanks for posting this jazakAllahkhair.
muslimah@ | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply