Chapter on the command to eat from the side of the bowl and the prohibition of eating from its center. In it is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): “Eat from what is near you.”

The reader: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
He (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "The chapter on the command to eat from the side of the bowl and the prohibition of eating from its center. It is narrated from Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him and his father) from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who said:

Indeed the blessing descends to the middle of the food, so eat from its edges, and do not eat from its middle.

البركة تنزل وسط الطعام فكلوا من حافتيه ولا تأكلوا من وسطه

Jami` at-Tirmidhi 1805Hasan (Darussalam)

It was narrated by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi, who said: It is a good, authentic hadith. And it is narrated from 'Abdullah ibn Busr (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had a bowl called al-Ghara' which four men would carry. When they had finished their morning and prayed the Duha prayer, that bowl was brought to them, meaning it contained a mixture of bread and meat, and they gathered around it. When they became numerous, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) sat on the ground, and a Bedouin man said: What is this sitting? The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

Allah has made me a humble and generous slave (of Allah) and has not made me arrogant and stubborn.

إن الله جعلني عبدًا كريمًا ولم يجعلني جبارًا عنيدًا

Sunan Ibn Majah 3263Hasan (Darussalam)

Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

Eat from it sides and leave its top, the blessing will be conferred on it

كلوا من حواليها ودعوا ذروتها يبارك فيها

Sunan Abi Dawud 3773Sahih (Al-Albani)

It was narrated by Abu Dawud with a good chain of narration."

The Shaykh : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
This chapter, which al-Nawawi (may Allah have mercy on him) established in *Riyad al-Salihin* in the book on the etiquette of food, conveys what we indicated previously, which is that people should eat from the sides of the bowl, meaning from its edges, not from its center, meaning not from its top. In the hadiths of Abdullah ibn Abbas and Abdullah ibn Busr (may Allah be pleased with them both), there is an indication of this. And when a person is served food, he should not eat from its top but from the side. If he is with a group, he should eat from what is near him and not from what is near others. And in his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): , there is an indication that if a person eats from its top, meaning from the center, the blessing is removed from the food. The scholars said: Except if the food consists of different types and one type is in the center and he wants to take some of it, then there is no harm. For example, if meat is placed in the center of the plate, it is permissible to eat from the meat even if it is in the center, because it has no counterpart on the sides, so there is no blame. Just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) used to pick up the dates from the entire plate, and dates are the fruit of the date palm.