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‘Good’ food: Islamic food ! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/2050303214567670

dietary laws crr.sagepub.com

Magfirah Dahlan-Taylor
Craven Community College, NC, USA

Abstract
In this article, I aim to contribute to the remedy of the current under-theorization of discourse on
food ethics and politics from the perspective of the Islamic food tradition by proposing a formu-
lation of an Islamic conception of food justice that extends the religious discourse on food beyond
that of dietary laws. The conception of Islamic food justice that I propose makes explicit the
connections between the religious, ethical, and political discourses on food. First, I argue that
the similarity between the central question of the secular approach to food ethics (i.e. what the
rational-ethical individual should eat) and that of the modern interpretation of the religious
approach to food (i.e. what the pious individual should eat) is best understood as a consequence
of the shared assumption of the modern concept of subjectivity. Second, I argue that problema-
tizing the concept of subjectivity that underlies both the secular and the religious approaches to
food ethics is key to challenging the boundaries of the current disciplinary-bound discourses as it
would allow for a reformulation of the central question beyond that of individual identity and
extend the religious discourse on food to the realm on politics.

Keywords
religious identity, food ethics, Islamic food justice, political ethics

Introduction

In modern society, there are disconnections between the religious discourse on food trad-
itions, the secular discourse on food ethics, and the overall discourse on food politics. Each
of these discourses is driven by unrelated assumptions and different central questions. While
the religious discourse focuses on dietary laws as markers of identity, the secular ethical
discourse on food focuses on rationally derived arguments for what an individual should eat.

Corresponding author:
Magfirah Dahlan-Taylor, Craven Community College, 800 College Court, New Bern, NC 28562, USA.
Email: magfirah@gmail.com

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2 Critical Research on Religion 0(0)

Neither of these questions, however, is explicitly related to the political question on food
justice. It is these disconnections that I seek to analyze in this article. To begin with, I focus
on the first disconnection; that is, between the religious discourse on food traditions and the
secular discourse on food ethics. Secular food ethics is assumed to be grounded on reason,
such as the concept of utility. In contrast, the religious discourse on food traditions is said to
be dogmatic and driven by text rather than context. I will explain this disconnection, and at
times the explicit opposition between the two discourses through the investigation of the
concept of subjectivity that serves as the foundation for the secularity of modernity. By
subjectivity, I mean the way the individual sees herself primarily in terms of a private,
autonomous individual rather than as part of her community. Understanding the formation
of this modern concept of subjectivity is crucial in order to, first, analyze the central question
that is currently dominant in both the secular discourse on food ethics and the religious
discourse on food traditions; and, second, to formulate a different central question that
would bring together the different discourses. The value of making these connections is to
have a more comprehensive discourse that is theoretically informed by the fields of religion,
ethics, and politics.
While there has been a dramatic increase in both academic and non-academic works on
the different aspects surrounding the issue of food in America over the past several years,
there has been very little written from an Islamic perspective. In this article, I seek not to
provide a thorough discussion on political approaches to religious food ethics—which I have
attempted to do elsewhere (Dahlan-Taylor, 2012). Instead, I aim to contribute to the dis-
courses on food ethics and politics from the perspective of the Islamic food tradition, which
has previously been under-theorized. The formulation of the Islamic conception of food
justice that I propose extends the religious discourse on food beyond that of dietary laws.
Current Islamic approaches on food tradition are limited to either ignoring or simply react-
ing to secular discourses on food ethics. In contrast to these approaches, I argue that an
Islamic discourse on food tradition can have a significant contribution to the overall dis-
course on food when it challenges the central question of the secular approach to food ethics.
The starting point of my argument is the similarity between the central question of the
secular approach to food ethics (i.e. what the rational-ethical individual should eat) and that
of the modern religious approach to food (i.e. what the pious individual should eat). I argue
that the shared assumption of the modern concept of subjectivity best explains the similarity
between these two central questions. More specifically, the modern concept of subjectivity
privileges the perspective of an individual (be it rational-ethical or pious) as a private subject
rather than as a part of her community. Once one understands this privileging, one can shift
the central question to a more comprehensive and inclusive one.
My analysis utilizes Michel de Certeau’s (1992) narrative of modernity on morality to
analyze the modern discourse on food ethics. De Certeau argues that modernity is charac-
terized by the displacement of a religious notion of morality with a non-religious one based
on rationality. In the first section of this article, I outline de Certeau’s narrative of displace-
ment (of a religious notion of morality with a secular one) by focusing on his explanation of
the creation of secular ethics as a result of the pursuit of objectivity at a unique moment in
history. In other words, the privileging of objectivity has allowed for a shift in the frames of
reference for morality, from a religious one to that of a secular one. Furthermore, not only
does religion no longer provide the frames of reference for morality, it is now reduced to an
object that needs to be explained and evaluated by secular frames of reference for morality,
such as the principle of utility.

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In the second section of this article, I apply de Certeau’s narrative to a secular argument
for ethical vegetarianism in order to make explicit the displacement of religious frames of
reference for morality in the secular approach to food ethics. There is of course diversity
within the discourse of secular food ethics. To be practical, however, I focus on the utilitar-
ian argument for ethical vegetarianism as presented in the works of Singer (e.g. 1993).
In particular, I analyze the way Singer positions his argument by contrasting a secular
utilitarian with a religious approach to food. I will demonstrate that underneath the appar-
ent contrast there lies the similarity between the central question of his secular utilitarian
approach to food ethics and that of the modern religious approach to food. As outlined in
the first section, the shared assumption of the modern concept of subjectivity best explains
the similarity of their central questions.
Having critically analyzed the religious and secular ethical discourses, there is a further
connection between the religious and the ethical with the political. I analyze this through a
discourse on food justice that relies on a different conception of subjectivity. Some scholars
have argued that Islamic traditions concerning food have been discussed primarily using the
language of exclusivist religious identity (for example, Ramadan (2009) and Foltz (2006)).
In the third section, I reconstruct an Islamic conception of food justice that extends the
religious discourse on food to the realm of food politics. I analyze a non-religious conception
of food justice using the works of Guthman (2011) and Winne (2008), who ground their
discussion on food justice by emphasizing the issues of labor and wealth inequality respect-
ively. I choose these two works because of their arguments on the need to formulate a
comprehensive and holistic notion of food justice from both the consumption and the
production aspects of the food system.
I then proceed to make the connection between the secular discourse on food justice and
the religious discourse on food by critically analyzing the works of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)
and Fazlur Rahman (1919–1988) with particular regards to the issues of labor and wealth
inequality in their works. Clearly, a more serious engagement with Islamic resources and
traditions would require a far more comprehensive list of scholars than can be discussed in
this article. The works of Ibn Khaldun and Fazlur Rahman are valuable because they
provide a foundation for the framework of a moral economy, within which the discourse
of food justice is situated. Additionally, an analysis of the works of these two scholars gives a
representation (albeit incomplete) of the long history of Islamic thought from both the
premodern and modern periods.

A brief genealogy of secular ethics

In this section, I outline de Certeau’s narrative of displacement, which provides an explan-
ation for the dominant central question shared by modern secular and religious approaches
to food. In his work, The Writing of History, de Certeau (1992) investigates the shift in the
frames of reference from religious to secular ethics in 17th- and 18th-century Western
Europe. He argues that this shift involved the move ‘‘from a religious organization to an
economic or political ethic’’ (1992: 147, emphasis original). De Certeau explains that this is a
consequence of the ‘‘history of a divorce’’ between morality and religion, which results in the
creation of secular ethics (1992: 148). The creation of the notion of morality without any
religious reference involves a redefinition of the concept of religion. More particularly, the
creation of secular ethics (i.e. ethics that is separated from religion) involves the creation of
the notion of religion as primarily consisting of ‘‘belief,’’ which can be studied objectively.

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De Certeau explains that the redefinition of religion as primarily consisting of belief

would mean that, ‘‘The contents of belief are subject to analysis from an increasing distance
in respect to the art of believing. Religion tends to become a social object, and hence an
object of study, in ceasing to be for the subjects that which allows them to think or behave’’
(1992: 152, emphasis original). This means that religion became an object that can be studied
objectively from the outside rather than subjectively from within its own frames of reference.
The creation of secular ethics through its opposition to the redefined concept of religion
constitutes a displacement of religion as frame of reference. De Certeau explains displace-
ment in terms of a process where ‘‘the doctrine of the past time is changed into a fact or
‘belief’; it is a ‘conviction’ (that is an opinion combined with a passion), or a ‘superstition’; in
sum, the object of an analysis built over autonomous criteria’’ (1992: 149). In other words,
religion no longer provides the frames of reference for morality. Religion is now reduced to
an object that needs to be explained and evaluated by rational frames of reference. It is this
displacement of religion that characterizes modernity, in which ‘‘religion begins to be per-
ceived from the outside. It is classified in the category of customs, or else in that of historical
contingencies’’ (1992: 152).
According to de Certeau, the creation of secular ethics was driven by the pursuit of
certainty and objectivity. He argues that the modern classification of religion as customs
is built upon the opposition of religion to reason (1992: 152). As a ‘‘science of mores,’’
secular ethics now plays the role of the objective standard against which religion is measured
and judged, which involves ‘‘the appraising of religion according to ‘values’ no longer its
own (the common good, the demands of conscience, progress, etc.)’’ (1992: 149). Secular
ethics is thought to be superior to religion because the former is perceived to be derived from
reason and can make claims of certainty and objectivity that religion as customs or historical
contingencies cannot.
Similar to de Certeau, Talal Asad (2011) also argues that the essential characterization of
religion in terms of private belief originates from a historically specific 17th-century Europe
(2011: 37). Asad explains that
Roughly from the seventeenth century on, the idea gradually crystallized among European
thinkers that in every society people believe in supernatural beings and told stories about the
origin of the world and about what happens to the individual after death; that in every society
people instituted rituals of worship and deferred to experts in these matters; and that therefore
religion was not something only Christians had. (2011: 37)

Asad argues that as part of the genealogy of secularism, this modern idea of religion gave
rise to ‘‘the sociology of error’’ of the Victorian anthropologists, whose primary goal was to
explain false beliefs (2011: 37). Later on, it also led to a different but related anthropological
approach to religion that sought to answer the questions of the universality and the func-
tionality of religion (2011: 37). Similar to de Certeau’s explanation, Asad explains the way
religion has been redefined in the modern sense as an object explainable and measurable
objectively using rational frames of reference.
Also similar to de Certeau, Asad argues that the modern definition of religion as belief
causes a disjunction between belief and behavior. Asad (2011: 49) writes, ‘‘How does it
happen that in modern capitalist society Christians and non-Christians, believers and
non-believers, live more or less the same life?’’ In other words, while belief is the sole
thing remaining in the domain of religion, behavior is now subject to a different set of
frames of reference, namely secular (economic and political) ethics. Having outlined the

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narrative of displacement of religion as part of the shift in the frames of references in mor-
ality, I will analyze an articulation of a secular ethics using the example of a utilitarian food
ethics, beginning with a brief outline of the argument before analyzing its assumptions
regarding religion.

Good food: subjectivity in a secular account of food ethics

In this section, I will outline the ways in which a secular approach to food ethics is often
disconnected and opposed to religious approaches to food. I will also analyze the ways in
which religious discourses on food tradition either ignore or react to secular discourses on
food ethics. The discourse on secular food ethics is clearly diverse; it includes consequentialist
and nonconsequentialist, utilitarian and deontological, and feminist ethical arguments, to name
several of the main types. Rather than discussing at length the different arguments, I focus on
one argument to provide a more detailed investigation of secular food ethics. More specifically, I
focus on the argument for ethical vegetarianism as formulated by Singer (1993) and Singer and
Mason (2006). Singer proposes ethical vegetarianism in response to the problems of the current
food system. He argues that industrial animal farming methods are the most pressing issue of the
current food system, which one cannot ethically justify. Given the complexity of the industrial
food system and the multiplicity of its problems, he argues that vegetarianism and veganism are
practical ethical solutions that individuals can implement directly and immediately without
requiring any systematic changes (Singer and Mason, 2006: 278).
In his earlier work, Singer has formulated the utilitarian argument for ethical vegetarian-
ism. The argument rests on the premise that animal farming practices in industrial societies
cause unnecessary pain to animals. He argues that the principle of utility requires us to take
the animals’ utility into consideration because of the animals’ capacity for suffering (Singer,
1993: 57). The argument also assumes that industrialized societies have developed a produc-
tion system that makes eating animals unnecessary. Based on those premises, Singer con-
cludes that ‘‘we should not eat chicken, pork, or veal, unless we know that the meat we are
eating was not produced by factory farmed methods’’ (1993: 63, emphasis mine). That is,
with regards to animal suffering, good food is food that we know is not produced in a system
that causes animal suffering.
Singer explicitly argues that ‘‘the important question is not whether animal flesh could be
produced without suffering, but whether the flesh we are considering buying was produced
without suffering’’ (1993: 64, emphasis original). Given the complexity of the food system
and the unlikelihood that most people are able to know for certain whether the meat they are
consuming has been produced ethically, Singer argues it is more practical to be on the safe
side and do away with consuming meat entirely. In short, for Singer, ethical vegetarianism is
a practical solution to the problems of the current food system because the issue of industrial
animal farming methods is the most pressing issue of the current food system, which one
cannot ethically justify.
The displacement of religious food traditions is evident from the lack of discussion about
it. This secular utilitarian argument is not formulated using any kind of reference to religious
food traditions. This does not mean that Singer excludes from his audience people who
would identify themselves as religious. Instead, I argue, he assumes that the utilitarian ethical
argument would be persuasive even for those who are religious. Whatever religious belief one
may have, the utilitarian ethical argument is one that should motivate one’s behavior about
food consumption.

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Singer made a brief and passing remark on a religious approach to food in his argument.
The focus of this remark is on the opposition rather than the similarities between the secular
utilitarian approach and the religious approach to food. He asserts that ‘‘eating ethically
doesn’t have to be like keeping kosher’’ (Singer and Mason, 2006: 282). When explaining the
distinction between secular ethical and religious approaches to food, Singer juxtaposed the
two, making explicit the displacement of the ethical frame of reference:
Some religions, like Orthodox Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, have strict rules against eating
particular foods, and their adherents are supposed to follow these rules all the time. If they break
them they may feel polluted, or disobedient to their god. But this rule-based view isn’t the only
possible approach to ethics, nor the best one, in our view. Ethical thinking can be sensitive to
circumstances. (2006: 281, emphasis mine)

This passage demonstrates Singer’s critical view of religious dietary rules. He judges the
religious approach to food (i.e. ‘‘this rule-based view’’) as inferior to the secular utilitarian
ethical approach because the former consists of strict rules that are not sensitive to the
circumstances of modern industrial farming. Even when the conclusion is identical (e.g.
prescription of vegetarianism), Singer would distinguish secular ethical vegetarianism from
any kind of religious vegetarianism because only secular ethical vegetarianism is considered
sensitive to circumstances.
It is important to make explicit that Singer uses the principle of utility as a measurement
to judge the religious approach to food. The claim that religious dietary rules are not sen-
sitive to circumstances means that those rules are not adhering to the rule of utility maxi-
mization that is assumed to be rational. In the passage I quoted, Singer describes those who
follow these religious dietary rules as being guided by their feelings (i.e. they feel polluted
when they break the strict rules). In contrast, those who follow the secular utilitarian ethical
rules are guided by their reason (i.e. ethical thinking). Not only does Singer view religious
dietary rules as irrelevant to ethical thinking, he views religious dietary rules as potentially
detrimental to ethical thinking insofar as the feeling-guided observance of religious dietary
rules can impede one’s development and acceptance of the reason-guided observance of
secular utilitarian ethical rules.
Whenever religious dietary laws have been understood as strict rules that do not take into
account the context beyond the letter of the dietary laws, I argue that such interpretation
exists as the result of the modern displacement of religion, where religion is classified merely
as customs. To observe a certain set of religious dietary laws (e.g. keeping kosher) in the
modern sense now means to follow a certain set of customs irrationally. It is now something
that needs to be supplemented by an external ethical frame of reference (i.e. rational utili-
tarian). In a secular utilitarian argument, it does not really matter whether one observes any
doctrinal-guided religious dietary laws, as long as such observance does not take precedent
over or prevent one from observing the reason-guided rules of secular utilitarian ethics.
I find suspicious the claim that the secular ethical approach to food is superior to the
religious approach to food because the latter consists of strict rules that are not sensitive to
circumstances. In her work Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics, Margaret
Urban Walker (2007) distinguishes between the theoretical-juridical model of ethics and the
expressive-collaborative model of ethics. She argues that the theoretical-juridical model is
characterized by ‘‘the representation of morality as a compact, propositionally codifiable,
impersonally action-guiding code within an agent, or as a compact set of law-like propos-
itions that ‘explain’ the moral behavior of a well-formed moral agent’’ (2007: 8). In other

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words, according to the theoretical-juridical model, ethics is something that an individual

can determine, pursue, and practice in isolation. In contrast, the expressive-collaborative
model of ethics is characterized by its view of ethics as ‘‘a socially embedded medium of
mutual understanding and negotiation between people over their responsibility for things
open to human care and response’’ (2007: 9, emphasis mine). That is to say, according to
the expressive-collaborative understanding, ethics is not something that an individual can
determine, pursue, and practice in isolation; rather, ethics is collaborative—it ‘‘arises out of
and is reproduced or modified in what goes on between or among people’’ (2007: 10). I argue
that despite its claim of sensitivity to circumstances, the secular utilitarian approach to food
ethics also assumes strict abstract codified rules (i.e. the principle of utility). Moreover,
individuals in isolation can discover these abstract rules.
The theoretical-juridical model of ethics frames the question in terms of what the individual
should do. Concerning food ethics, the central question is, What should I eat? The same
question serves as the central question of the modern interpretation of a religious approach
to food. Observance of religious dietary laws in this case has been understood in terms of what
the pious individual should eat. As a consequence, individuals treat religious dietary laws as
inflexible rules. And it makes it difficult to think or speak of a religious approach to food
collaboratively as members of a community rather than as an autonomous individual. I argue
that the inflexibility of this modern interpretation of a religious approach to food is a conse-
quence of the displacement of religion by a theoretical-juridical model of secular ethics.
Another equally modern interpretation of a religious approach to food may also take the
form of interpreting religious dietary laws through the lens of secular ethics. What charac-
terizes this interpretation as equally modern is the individualistic characteristic of the inter-
pretation or the way in which one frames the main question, that is, in terms of what the
pious individual should eat. An example of the interpretation of religious dietary laws
through the lens of secular ethics is the argument for Jewish vegetarianism as formulated
by Roberta Kalechofsky (2004). Kalechofsky specified five principles from which one can
derive vegetarianism. The principles are:
Pikuach nefesh (the commandment to guard your health and life); tsa’ar ba’alei chaim (avoid
causing pain to any living creature); bat tashchit (the commandment not to waste or destroy
anything of value; tzedakah (to help the needy and work for a more just society); and klal Israel
(to work for the welfare of the community). (2004:173–74)

Kalechofsky uses historical hermeneutics to argue that vegetarianism best fulfills the original
intention of the dietary laws given the current context of modern industrial meat production.
She explains,
the reason for the complexity of the laws of kashrut was to make the eating of meat difficult and
to teach us refinement in our appetite and reverence for animal life. But the fact is that kashrut
does not perform these functions for most modern Jews. The modern Western world, with its
overabundance of meat eaten by urban people divorced from animal life, has severely changed
the meaning of traditional kashrut. (2004: 173)

Therefore, she concludes, given the vast difference between the original contexts of the laws
and the current modern context, retaining the intention or the purpose of the laws necessi-
tates a redefinition of the permissible and the forbidden.
Furthermore, Kalechofsky argues that one should not understand the extensive rules
regarding meat eating as a requirement for meat eating. Rather, one should understand

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8 Critical Research on Religion 0(0)

the rules as limiting or restricting the permissibility of meat eating. Kalechofsky writes, the
‘‘law of kashrut limited the meat Jews ate to those animals who were vegetarian animals,
which reveals the continuing aversion to the problem of predation in the world [. . . and]
there has never been a commandment in Judaism to eat meat’’ (2004: 170–71). The lack of
a commandment to eat meat, coupled with the view that dietary laws are meant to restrict
what is permissible, leads to the conclusion that a historically progressive understanding of
the religious dietary laws would be to eliminate meat eating altogether. Together with the
unethical conditions in which meat is currently produced in the current industrialized food
system, she argues that vegetarianism becomes the logical conclusion of the ethical prin-
ciples of the religion—a conclusion that is specifically made necessary by the modern
context.
On the one hand, the emphasis on the ethical principles challenges the secular separation
of ethics from religion. It allows for a different reading on the religious dietary laws.
Kalechofsky’s argument for Jewish vegetarianism is best read as a direct response to the
criticism by Singer, who believes that religious dietary laws, followed thoughtlessly without
regards to contexts or circumstances, stand in opposition to ethical thinking sensitive to
circumstances. When Singer (in Singer and Mason, 2006: 282) writes, ‘‘eating ethically
doesn’t have to be like keeping kosher,’’ Kalechofsky (2004: 173) responds that ‘‘Jewish
vegetarianism restores kashrut to its original intentions and its original simplicity, where
purpose and practice have a relationship and harmony that can easily be grasped.’’ While
Singer views kosher as irrelevant or even potentially detrimental to ethical thinking,
Kalechofsky argues that kosher should be defined—and continuously redefined—by the
fundamental ethical principles of Judaism.
On the other hand, I argue that this particular religious response to the criticism of a
secular approach to food ethics is problematic because it remains individualistic in nature. It
emphasizes the actions that individuals should do as individuals and makes it difficult to
think or speak of a religious approach to food collaboratively as members of a community.
Far from problematizing the modern displacement of religion as an ethical frame of refer-
ence, the individualist interpretation of religion affirms secular ethics by affirming the
modern subjectivity barely concealed behind the thin layer of religiosity. In the next section,
I will discuss a different approach to think about religious food ethics, that is, one that takes
into account not only the well-being of individuals but also the well-being of the society. This
approach not only brings together the religious and ethical, but also the political discourses.

Islamic food justice: rethinking religious food ethics

In order for an Islamic approach to food to make a significant contribution to the overall
discourse on food, I argue for the need to make explicit the connections between the reli-
gious, the ethical, and the political discourses by problematizing the modern displacement of
religion as a frame of reference. More specifically, I argue for a reconstruction of an Islamic
conception of food justice that would allow for a different way to think about religious food
ethics. In this section, I begin by situating Islamic food justice within the existing non-
religious discourse on food justice. According to Guthman (2011), the concept of food
justice, as the alternative food movement understands and employs it, has a very particular
meaning. It is rooted in the environmental health and justice movement whose main focus is
inequalities. As part of this movement, the alternative-food movement’s conception of food
justice focuses on unequal access to good and healthy food. The goal of the food justice

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movement is to make good and healthy food more equally accessible to groups of people
who would otherwise be marginalized.
Guthman argues that while the goal of making good and healthy food more equally
accessible is desirable, such a conception of food justice is problematic because it emphasizes
the consumption side of the food system at the cost of neglecting its production side (2011:
141). She argues that
the existing food justice perspective, which emphasizes the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables
in neighborhood venues, can obscure the sources of injustice in the food system [ . . . ] particularly
those arising in food production: exposure to toxic chemicals, poor working conditions as they
apply to health and safety, and disparities in wages and employment. (2011: 153)

In other words, she is arguing for a more comprehensive notion of food justice, which is one
that encompasses not only the unequal access of good and healthy food, but also inequal-
ities, exploitation, and oppression involved in the way food is produced.
Winne (2008) echoes Guthman’s argument on the need to conceptualize food justice in a
more comprehensive way. In his work that focuses on the need to close the food gap, Winne
argues that without a more holistic approach to addressing the problem of the food system,
the conception of food justice that focuses on improving access to good and healthy food
through charitable projects can actually worsen rather than solve the problem of social
inequality. He argues that non-governmental organizations such as food banks that provide
short-term solutions by increasing accessibility of food for people in low-income neighbor-
hoods can undermine the need to address the problem at the more fundamental level that
requires more radical change. According to Winne,
there was an opportunity cost associated with choosing to collect and distribute other people’s
leftovers rather than fight the public policy battles that should have been fought more vigor-
ously. The result was that the public lost sight of the need for fundamental change, and policy-
makers were let off the hook. (2008: 29)

Instead of short-term solutions based on the limited notion of food justice, Winne (2008: 81)
proposes more holistic solutions similar to those of Guthman’s, such as working through
public policies to improve the wages of low-income workers (not only of those working in
food production) so there will be more equal affordability of food. Both authors understand
the concept of food justice within the larger framework of socio-economic justice.
Before proceeding to (re-)construct an Islamic conception of food justice, I shall give a
justification for why such a conception is needed. Here, I want to acknowledge the difficulties
in analyzing the works of Islamic scholars using concepts or ideas developed outside the
discourse used by the scholars themselves. I also want to avoid the danger of falling into the
trap of asking the question of whether Islam is compatible with such ideas, which may be
laden with unproblematized ideological assumptions. The proposal for the need to formulate
an Islamic conception of food justice lies not in its value of showing the compatibility of such
a conception with its non-Islamic (whatever that means) counterpart, which often puts
‘‘Islam’’ in the reactionary or defensive position. Instead, the need for such a conception
arises from its potential contribution to thinking differently about a problem that has been
identified from within the discourse of studies of Islamic teachings and traditions.
Some scholars argue that Islamic traditions concerning food have been discussed mainly
in terms of Islamic dietary laws and exclusivist religious identity (e.g., Ramadan, 2009; Foltz,
2004; 2006; Masri, 2009). The way Muslims approach the issue of food has been reduced to

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what Muslims can and cannot eat based on the letter of the Islamic dietary laws and their
exclusivity, that is, how Muslims are different from others. The use of this seemingly
straightforward approach of following the letter of the dietary law can be problematic
even at this level. For example, Qur’anic verses that explicitly address the prohibition on
certain food include verses that speak to the importance of zabiha (sometimes spelled
dhabiha, referring to the requirement of slaughter), and the verse that speaks to the per-
missibility of the food of the People of the Book. The verse that speaks to the importance
of zabiha is as follows: ‘‘Eat not of (meats) On which Allah’s name Hath not been
pronounced: That would be impiety’’ (Ali, 1996: VI:121); whereas the verse that speaks
to the permissibility of the food of the people of the Book is as follows: ‘‘This day are (all)
things Good and pure made lawful Unto you. The food of the People of the Book is
lawful unto you and yours is lawful Unto them’’ (Ali, 1996: V:5). Clearly, a well-thought
approach to Islamic food ethics requires much more than simply following the letter of the
dietary laws. More importantly, in contrast to this individualistic and exclusivist approach,
I argue for an approach that focuses on what Muslims can contribute to the larger dis-
cussion on food justice by engaging with Islamic sources and traditions. Therefore, by
attempting to analyze an Islamic conception of food justice, I seek not only to challenge
the exclusivist assumption of a religious approach to food, but also to contribute to the
larger discourse of food justice.
Before analyzing Ibn Khaldun’s (1958) The Muqaddimah for articulations of food justice,
I want to acknowledge the difficulties in reading pre-modern texts with the aim of applying
them to modern concepts. The work of Tomar (2008) is valuable in elucidating the different
ways in which Ibn Khaldun has been read and interpreted by different scholars, including
modern Islamic scholars. Tomar argues that the different and conflicting interpretations of
Ibn Khaldun’s work by modern Islamic scholars—for example Darwinian, Marxist, and
pan-Arabist interpretations—have resulted partly from the tendency of the interpreters to
use a ‘‘piecemeal’’ rather than a holistic approach. This involves, ‘‘afford[ing Ibn Khaldun’s
thoughts] grand interpretations based on a single sentence or paragraph extracted from the
Muqaddimah’’ (2008: 610). In order to gain a more holistic understanding of the work, it is
important to situate any single sentence or paragraph within the larger context of the entire
work.
In The Muqaddimah, food plays a central role in Ibn Khaldun’s (1958) explanation of
social organization. Laying down the foundation for his analysis of social organization, he
begins with food and defense as the two fundamental reasons for cooperation, without which
civilization would be impossible. To get a good grasp of the centrality of the issue of food in
Ibn Khaldun’s work, it is beneficial to quote him in his entirety from the opening to the first
chapter of Book 1 of The Muqaddimah, which provides the following reason for social
organization:
(The necessary character of human social organization or civilization) is explained by the fact
that God created and fashioned man in a form that can live and subsist only with the help of
food. He guided man to a natural desire for food and instilled in him the power that enables him to
obtain it.
However, the power of the individual human beings is not sufficient for him to obtain (the food) he
needs, and does not provide him with minimum of food—that is, food enough for one day, (a little)
wheat, for instance—that amount of food could be obtained only after much preparation such as
grinding, kneading, and baking. Each of these three operations requires utensils and tools that
can be provided only with the help of several crafts, such as the crafts of the blacksmith, the

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carpenter, and the potter. Assuming that a man could eat unprepared grain, an even greater
number of operations would be necessary in order to obtain the grain: sowing and reaping, and
threshing to separate it from the husks of the ear. Each of these operations requires a number of
tools and many more crafts than those just mentioned. It is beyond the power of one man alone
to do all that, or part of it, by himself. Thus he cannot do without a combination of many
powers from among his fellow beings, if he is to obtain food for himself and for them. Through
co-operation, the needs of a number of persons, many times greater than their own number, can
be satisfied. (1958: I:69, emphasis mine)

This shows that, for Ibn Khaldun, food plays a central role in fundamentally shaping human
relationships. Our absolute dependence on food and our inability to provide for ourselves as
an individual serves as one of the most basic reasons for human organizations. The import-
ance of framing the issue of food as a fundamentally socio-political issue lies in its value in
providing a starting point to challenge the exclusivist approach to food that focuses on
specific dietary laws. More important and basic than any distinguishing function, food is
something all humans not only share but that also characterizes our relationship between
one another.
I argue that the centrality of our dependence on food as the fundamental reason for our
dependence on one another is valuable for grounding the argument for labor justice as part
of an Islamic conception of food justice. The concept of cooperation as division of labor is
an important concept in Ibn Khaldun’s work that has been extensively analyzed by many
scholars. One approach to analyzing Ibn Khaldun’s thought on cooperation and division of
labor is to speak of the concepts in a way that conforms to what I argue is a bias of
preferring a specifically secular, modern market system with minimal intervention from
the state, one that lacks any discussion of justice. For example, one can observe this in
the work of Boulakia (1971) who explains cooperation with the voluntary division of labor.
In order to make her argument that division of labor is proposed unproblematically by
Ibn Khaldun, Boulakia quotes the following passages from him:
The power of the individual human being is not sufficient for him to obtain [the food] he needs,
and does not provide him with as much food as he requires to live. (1:69)
What is obtained through the co-operation of a group of human beings satisfies the need of a
number many times greater [than themselves]. (2:235)
The combined labour produces more than the needs and necessities of the workers. (2:235)
Through co-operation, the needs of a number of persons, many times greater than their own
[number] can be satisfied. (1:69) (1971: 1107–1108).

Based on those passages, Boulakia concludes that Ibn Khaldun ‘‘advocates a social organ-
ization of production in the form of a specialization of labor’’ (1971: 1108).
I argue, however, that it is important to understand Ibn Khaldun’s concept of cooper-
ation (that is understood as our dependence on one another that arises partly from our
dependence on food) as something that is more problematic than simple voluntary associ-
ation. More importantly, it is also essential to understand that cooperation is subject to
divine justice. This is demonstrated by Ibn Khaldun’s further explanation of the nature of
cooperation:
It has been established that a single human being could not fully exist by himself [ . . . ] Now, such
co-operation is obtained by the use of force, since people are largely ignorant of the interests of the
(human) species [ . . . ] They thus refrain from co-operating. Therefore, it is obligatory to make

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them (co-operate), and there must be some motive forcing human beings to take care of their
interests, so that God’s wise plan as to the preservation of mankind can materialize. This is what
is meant by the verse of the Qur’an: ‘‘And we place some of you over others in various grades, so
that they might use the others for forced labor. The mercy of your Lord is better than whatever
they gather.’’ (1958: II: 289–90, emphasis mine)
In other words, rather than assuming that cooperation takes form in terms of voluntary
actions by individuals who know the benefit of such cooperation, Ibn Khaldun, assumes the
contrary of such knowledge and describes humans as being ignorant of their own interests.
Due to this ignorance, cooperation needs to be obtained by force by those with the power to
do so.
While Ibn Khaldun’s reading on this Qur’anic verse can be subject to further analysis
concerning individual agency and free will, what is central to his argument on cooperation is
the power inequality that is inherent in cooperative relations. Moreover, because of such
inequality, cooperation can take the form of either just or unjust relations. Ibn Kahldun’s
work is valuable because it makes an explicit and intimate connection between our depend-
ence on food and the power inequality that is inherent in the cooperation that is necessitated
by that dependence. A closer analysis of Ibn Kahldun’s work provides grounding for an
Islamic conception of food justice because it provides the necessary shift in the way Muslims
perceive food and their relationship with one another. The shift involves moving away from
approaching food from a strictly consumer perspective (albeit a religious one) by asking
questions that are limited to what one can and cannot eat given what is specified as Islamic
dietary laws, to an approach that takes seriously labor injustices that reflect the problems of
power inequality inherent in cooperative relations.
In Ibn Kahldun’s work, there are specific instances and examples that support the argu-
ment for the importance of labor justice. Cooperation is subject to divine justice because it
must be obtained by force. This is evident in the way Ibn Khaldun distinguishes between the
just use of rank and the unjust use of rank in the following passage:
It has, thus, become clear that rank means the power enabling human beings to be active among
the fellow men under their control with permission and prohibition, and to have forceful super-
iority over them, in order to make them avoid things harmful to them and seize their advantages.
(They may act) in justice and apply the laws of religion and politics, and (also) follow their own
purposes in everything else. However, the first thing (the just use of rank) was intended by the
divine providence as something essential, whereas the second thing (self-seeking use of rank)
enters into it as something accidental, as is the case with all evils decreed by God [ . . . ] This is the
meaning of the occurrence of injustice in the world. (1958: II:290, emphasis mine)

These passages demonstrate the importance of labor justice as part of justice in cooperation.
As such, the passages can contribute to an Islamic conception of food justice by providing
the foundation for arguing that labor justice is best understood within the framework of a
moral economy.
Ibn Khaldun’s assumption of a moral economy regarding labor justice is also evident in
his discussion of the importance of labor justice to the well-being of a civilization. He
describes unjust use of forced labor as one of the reasons for the demise of a civilization
in the following passage:
One of the greatest injustices and one which contributes most to the destruction of civilization is
the unjustified imposition of tasks and the use of the subjects for forced labor [ . . . ] Subjects

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employed in cultural enterprises gain their livelihood and profit from such activities [i.e. through
labor]. Now if they are obliged to work outside their own field and are used for forced labor
unrelated to their (ordinary ways of) making a living, they no longer have any profit and are thus
deprived of the price of their labor, which is their capital (asset). They suffer, and a good deal of
their livelihood is gone, or even all of it. If this occurs repeatedly, all incentive to cultural
enterprise is destroyed, and they cease utterly to make an effort. This leads to the destruction
and ruin of civilization. (1958: II: 98)

This passage demonstrates his argument for the importance of having just labor relations in
society because unjust labor relations would not only deprive the workers of their ability to
earn their own livelihood, but when this injustice is institutionalized and happens repeatedly,
it will lead to the destruction of society. In other words, the importance of labor justice needs
to be understood not only in terms of the well-being of individuals but also for the well-being
of society and their entire civilization.
Fazlur Rahman shares Ibn Khaldun’s assumption of a moral economy. As one of the
leading lights of modern Islamic thought, Rahman’s most important contribution arguably
was his development of a hermeneutical approach to the Qur’an, which he contrasts with the
‘‘atomistic’’ approach (Rahman, 1982). He applies his hermeneutical approach to under-
stand what the Qur’an says about socio-economic justice and moral economy, concepts that
are central to many of his works (e.g., Rahman, 1970, 1974, 1982, 2002). In his discussions
on socio-economic justice, Rahman emphasizes the flexibility of interpretation and applica-
tion of the economic principles and situates economic life within a greater ethical framework.
Rahman’s hermeneutical approach involves contextualizing the economic principles found
in the Qur’an and traditions of the early Muslim community. This means that specific eco-
nomic injunctions found in Islamic scholarly and legal texts are interpreted according to
both the historical and the current socio-economic conditions.
The evidence of Rahman’s assumption of a moral economy is evident in his treatment of
religion and economy as inseparable. Moreover, Rahman’s argument is not simply that the
Qur’an includes economic injunctions, but that a conception of socio-economic justice
founded on the spirit of solidarity is central to the teaching of Islam (2002). More specific-
ally, he argues that
Chronologically, the first belief that the Qur’an inculcated after monotheism and socio-economic
justice was that of judgment or final answerability. [ . . . T]he development of regular congrega-
tional prayers and the levying of alms for the poor, besides the spiritual benefit that they
bestowed on an individual, contributed enormously towards producing that cohesiveness and
spirit of solidarity which is especially necessary for a young struggling community and which is
still a palpable characteristic of the Muslim community to this day. (2002: 15)

According to Rahman, one cannot distinguish the rituals such as prayers as alms for the
poor or zakat as purely ‘‘religious’’ or devoid of any socio-economic functions or values. For
establishing the importance of formulating an Islamic conception of food justice, the import-
ance of Rahman’s insight lies in its challenge of the exclusivist approach to food that focuses
on specific dietary laws. First, just as Rahman argues that congregational prayers and zakat
should be understood as having both spiritual and socio-economic benefits, I argue that
Islamic food ethics should be understood in a more encompassing manner than having only
the spiritual benefit of instilling an individual sense of obedience or discipline.
Second, the centrality of zakat in Rahman’s reading of the Qur’an provides a foundation
on which an Islamic conception of food justice can be built. His analysis on zakat is valuable

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because it is grounded on the importance of flexibility in the method of interpretation that he

proposes. He argues that his hermeneutical method is closer to the practices of the early
generations of Muslims, which he contrasts with those of the later generations of classical
Islamic jurists. According to him, the very early generations of Muslims ‘‘took the raw
materials for this [Islamic] law from the customs and institutions of the conquered lands,
modified them, where necessary, in the light of the Qur’anic teaching, and integrated them
with that teaching’’ (2002: 2). In other words, Muslims should understand Islamic laws,
including those that pertain to economic life, as responses and adjustments to particular
customs and institutions of different contexts, rather than as something that can be formu-
lated or ‘‘deduced from the Qur’an in abstracto’’ (2002: 2).
Rahman argues that in contrast to the early generations of Muslims, the later generations
of classical Islamic jurists were more preoccupied with codifying the injunctions that gov-
erned the economic life of Muslims. Moreover, they did so at the cost of losing the flexibility
that is necessary in order to achieve the injunctions’ true purposes. With regards to zakat, he
argues that it
was clearly meant by the Qur’an as a principle of interference in the private wealth in the interest
of the general welfare of society, and particularly for the amelioration of the poorer sections of
the society [ . . . ]. But the classical lawyers of Islam stuck so tenaciously to the actual manner (in
terms of quantities, etc.) in which the Prophet had applied it to his society, that later this law lost
most of its meaning and effect. (2002: 15)

Rahman argues that Muslims need to understand zakat in terms of its principle function
of ameliorating the problem of wealth inequality in society rather than treating it as a
purely religious injunction whose observance focuses on the codification of its procedures,
including, for example, the standardization of the quantities of zakat. Rahman’s hermen-
eutical approach to zakat is important because it challenges the assumption that religion is
a private matter that speaks mainly to individual’s obligations and responsibilities. That is,
it is not sufficient for Muslims as individuals to pay zakat from their wealth; it is also
necessary to collectively ensure that the zakat is used for the general welfare of society. I
argue that, similar to Ibn Khaldun’s view on the importance of labor justice, Rahman
views zakat as a means to bring about socio-economic justice, which is important not only
for its benefit of bringing about the well-being of individuals but also for the well-being of
society.
As an important part of Islamic traditions, zakat is a valuable concept and practice that
can directly contribute to the attempt to formulate an Islamic conception of food justice.
Currently, many faith-based organizations, including Islamic food banks, limit their
attempts to address the problem of the food gap by providing short-term alleviations to
the chronic problem of wealth inequality by focusing on the concept of charity. While short-
term alleviations are necessary and beneficial, they are not sufficient to address the more
fundamental problem of food injustice. For example, Winne (2008) argues that without
unpacking the problem of antipoverty measures that do not challenge the commodification
of food, efforts to close the food gap between people in different classes can instead con-
tribute to the perpetuation of the unjust food system. He argues against the food banks
whose goals are solely to provide a safety net for the poor after the reduction of government
benefits. According to Winne, ‘‘there was an opportunity cost associated with choosing to
collect and distribute other people’s leftovers rather than fight the public policy battles that
should have been fought more vigorously’’ (2008: 29). A better alternative to such food

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activism, Winne argues, is to link the services that are needed to alleviate the immediate need
with the long-term solution of public policy reform (2008: 77).
Rahman’s hermeneutical approach to interpreting the injunction of zakat places the empha-
sis on its purpose, which is to increase the general welfare of society. It requires situating
economic principles (including the principle of the interference of private wealth) in their local
context. This means that Muslims should interpret specific economic injunctions found in
Islamic scholarly and legal texts according to both the historical and current socio-economic
conditions. This approach not only allows for a greater flexibility in its implementation, it also
makes it possible for Muslims to reformulate the religious tradition by including longer-term
solutions of public policy reforms. It allows them to reformulate the issue of wealth inequality
by asking a more fundamental question of what Muslims need to do to contribute to collective
efforts that make possible a more just redistribution of wealth. Rahman’s emphasis on the
importance of flexibility in understanding and implementing Qur’anic injunctions and other
Islamic traditions is extremely valuable, especially given a different trend in modern Islamic
scholarship that focuses instead on formulating (or rather, rediscovering) a distinctively
Islamic economic order whose primary characteristic is exclusivist religious identity.
Rahman’s interpretation of zakat contributes to an Islamic conception of food justice by
shifting the focus away from its codification and quantification. It challenges the assumption
that religion is a private matter and then speaks to individual’s obligations and responsi-
bilities. Rather than limiting the implementations of zakat to providing short-term allevi-
ations of the problem of the food gap, a contextual approach to zakat would compel
Muslims to ask the question of what can be done collectively to ensure that ethically pro-
duced food is available for all.

Conclusion

While there has been a dramatic increase in both academic and non-academic works on the
different aspects surrounding the issue of food ethics and food justice in America in the past
several years, there has been very little written from a religious perspective in general and an
Islamic one in particular. Moreover, some existing works on food ethics and food justice presume
that secular and religious approaches to these issues lie with different philosophical assumptions.
In this article, I have shown that although secular and religious approaches to food ethics are
often understood as not only different but also in opposition to one another, they share a similar
central question around which the approaches are developed. This similarity indicates the
assumption of modern subjectivity that privileges individual consumption and identity.
In order to contribute to the remedy of the current under-theorization of discourse of
food ethics and politics from the perspective of the Islamic food tradition, I propose a (re-)
construction of an Islamic conception of food justice. While so much scholarship on Islamic
food practices and traditions have focused on different interpretations of the Qur’anic verses
with regards to what a Muslim can and cannot eat, I presented a way to rethink the central
question beyond that of individual identity and to extend the religious discourse on food to
the realm of the politics of dietary laws. Further theoretical development, including that
based on analysis of other religious food traditions, would not only enrich theoretical con-
versation but also provide foundation for collaborative practices and activism. The argu-
ment I have outlined in this article has the potential to contribute to studies of interfaith
food activism, which are political in nature because they do not assume that religious food
ethics are a matter of individual or privatized identity. More investigations are needed

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into the political or collaborative aspect of different religious food practices. Ultimately, the
conception of Islamic food justice that I propose not only bridges the gap between the
apparent disconnections between the currently dominant secular discourse and the religious
discourse on food ethics, but also potentially renews an urgency to thinking about the
politics of dietary laws.

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Author biography
Magfirah Dahlan-Taylor is an instructor in Political Science, Philosophy, Religion, and
Humanities at Craven Community College. Her primary research is on the political
approach to Islamic food ethics as a possible way to challenge the postcolonial legacy of
the secular form of religiosity and liberal subjectivity; while at the same time providing an
opening for Muslims to contribute to the current discussion on social justice and
sustainability.

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