When the Soul is Full
The greatest drink to satisfy a person, and the most exquisite food to taste, is when God loves you.
MAY 25, 2025
Originally published in Arabic on May 4th, 2025 on Sotour.net
Someone once recently asked me, “How do you eat in the midst of the famine we're going through?”
And I replied:
I’ve begun imagining that I’ve eaten more than actually spending time craving food.
For example, I take green onion stalks, season them with spices, stir them around, and imagine that I’ve added eggs. If I want to take my imagination further, I even picture adding bits of bell pepper and mushrooms.
He asked me, “And how does it taste?”
That was a strange question, because for more than a year and a half under genocide, I’ve lost all sense of taste. Everything tastes the same — the scent of burning smoke and a deep sorrow stretching across mass graves, especially those marked “Unknown Identity.”
But I discovered that this kind of imagining puts me in a state of biological balance, so to speak. It also pulls me out of the prison of this wretched cell called hunger.
And because I fell in love with imagining, I opted not to drink my coffee dry.
I closed my eyes and imagined a piece of waffle beside it.
He asked, “Did you feel the taste of the waffle?” I answered, “Yes.”
I wonder: Can a person truly taste through memory? I believe — yes, they can!
Because human beings have a powerful spiritual sense, through which they can taste metaphors, emotions, experiences, and expressions. A person can relive pain with the same intensity, even if years have passed. When someone remembers a person who angered them, it feels as if fire has just been lit beneath their heart.
Sensation is tied to imagination — every feeling is a present memory.
And I wonder another thing: How can someone reduce all of their tasting ability to just their mouth? They always focus on appetizers, main courses, desserts, then tea, coffee, juice — never realizing that by flooding the body with sensory pleasure, they are shutting down their ability to taste with their imagination, heart, and soul.
Because when you fill a plastic bag to the brim with sand and pebbles and then press your finger against it, do you leave a mark? No — because there’s no room for the bag to register anything from the outside.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:
“We are a people who do not eat unless we are hungry, and when we eat, we do not fill ourselves.”
This is a profound and noble saying, for many reasons:
If you eat while already full, you lose the joy of tasting — like a doll stuffed with cotton. No matter how much you stuff it, it remains a puffy doll, never becoming a bird or a stalk of wheat or anything else. Eating while full turns you into a doll without sensation — and this is not what the Prophet ﷺ wants for you. You are more elevated, more honorable, more worthy than that.
But if you keep eating until you're full, you lock the lips of your soul, stripping it of its ability to taste meaning. The soul is from above, created to receive from its Creator — so how can light descend upon you when you’ve shut all the windows with food in your pursuit of the thrill of fullness? Even if that light does descend, your soul can no longer taste it — because you've disabled the lips of the soul, responsible for your journey of tasting.
You've turned off its pathways in favor of the body’s.
I’m trying to reflect on all these meanings — ones I hadn’t contemplated until now. This war has redefined so many things in my life. One of the most important? Hunger.
There are many people who are physically hungry, yet their hearts are full. And many who are full, yet their hearts are starving.
You’ll find people who eat the finest foods at all times, who can order anything they desire whenever they want — but they've never experienced what it means for God to nourish and quench them. They don't know that the greatest drink to satisfy a person, and the most exquisite food to taste, is when God loves you. When He loves you, you taste that love in every cell of your body and soul — and everything else becomes meaningless by comparison.
Perhaps that’s why the Prophet ﷺ said:
“I spend the night with my Lord feeding me and giving me drink.”
A believer cannot dwell with his Lord without first learning how to let his body go hungry, so that his soul can be fed. Every true hunger of the body is an ascension — a journey of the needy servant toward the Rich, the Provider.
And peace and blessings be upon our Master Muhammad, and upon his family and companions.
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