Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw that I had eaten twice in one day and he said: “O ‘Aishah, do you want to have nothing to worry about except your stomach? Eating twice a day is extravagance and Allah does not love those who are extravagant.”
Praise be to Allah
This hadeeth was
narrated by al-Bayhaqi in Shu‘ab al-Eeman (7/441). He said: Abu ‘Abd
al-Rahman al-Sulami told us: Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Hamdan narrated to us:
Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ubaydah narrated to us: Yahya ibn ‘Uthman al-Masri
narrated to us: my father narrated to me: from Ibn Luhay‘ah, from
Abu’l-Aswad, from ‘Urwah, from ‘Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) – and
he quoted it. This isnad (chain of narrators) is da‘eef (weak).
Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman
al-Sulami’s name was Muhammad ibn al-Husayn, the author of the book Tabaqat
al-Soofiyyah (d. 412 AH). Al-Hafiz al-Thahabi said concerning him: They
criticized him and he is not reliable. See Mizan al-I‘tidal, 3/532.
‘Abd-Allah ibn
Luhay‘ah is da‘eef (weak) in terms of his memory too.
Hence Imam
al-Bayhaqi said, after narrating this report: There is some weakness in it.
End quote.
Al-Munthiri (may
Allah have mercy on him) said: Its isnad includes Ibn Lunhay‘ah. End quote.
Al-Targheeb
wa’l-Tarheeb, 3/101
Al-Shaykh
al-Albani (may Allah have mercy on hm) said: It is mawdoo‘ (fabricated). End
quote.
Al-Silsilah
al-Da‘eefah, 257.
We have previously
quoted a number of saheeh hadeeths (authentic narrations) which condemn
extravagance in food. You can see them in the answer to question no.
102374. There is nothing in them to suggest that eating twice in one day
is criticized.
To sum up: eating
twice in one day is something that is permissible and allowed. It is one of
the well-known customs of the Arabs. They used to eat two meals in a day,
al-ghada’ and al-‘asha’ (morning and afternoon/evening meals). If a person
did not do this, it was only because he was poor; it was not because eating
twice in one day is a kind of extravagance.
It was narrated
that ‘Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: “The family of Muhammad
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did not eat two meals in one day
but one of them was dates.
Narrated by
al-Bukhari, 6455.
Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar
(may Allah have mercy on him) said:
This indicates
that sometimes they could not find anything but one meal in a day, and if
they did find two meals, one of them would be dates. End quote.
Fath al-Bari
(11/292)
And Allah knows
best.
