Declaring Allah’s Name

Declaring Allah’s name before eating and drinking and using the right hand for the purpose.

The first of these is to express gratitude to Allah for His bounties and to invoke His blessings and the second is to constantly remind us that those who are bestowed with the favours of Paradise will receive their account in their right hand on the Day of Judgement. In other words, when a true believer uses his right hand while eating and drinking, he symbolically expresses his desire to be among the (companions of the right hand) on the Day of Judgement.

The Prophet (Peace be upon him) has directed us to follow this Sunnah of the Prophets in the following words:

“When anyone among you is about to eat food, he should say ‘Bismillah’. If he forgets to say it at the beginning and [remembers it later on while eating], he should say: “In the name of Allah; [count these words, O Lord!] both at the beginning and at the end of the food [I have eaten]””.

(Reported by Tirmadhi, No: 1858)

“When anyone among you eats, he should eat with the right hand and when he drinks, he should drink with the right hand.” (Reported by Muslim, No: 2020)