The Prophet's purpose was to be God's messenger. God didn’t send the Prophet to tell what he liked to eat. The Prophet was sent to convey God's message, tell us how to worship God, make people aware of the one God, inform about the Hereafter, which actions lead to Hell and which actions lead to Heaven. Telling people about this was the real purpose of the Prophet's life. Other things are of secondary importance. If you don’t lay emphasis on deeper issues and speak about trivial matters, then that would lead to a shift of emphasis. Overlooking important matters and being enthusiastic over trivial issues is wrong attitude.
You may have heard that the Prophet loved sweet, bottle gourd, meat and so on. People make elaborate preparation of these dishes. They say the Prophet loved them. When I read the Hadith, I realized the above sayings on food attributed to the Prophet are from his time in Madinah, not Makkah. It is said that the Prophet loved all the food available in Madinah. For example, Madinah had dates, chapati, meat. These food items were prepared simply. Unlike present times, dishes in Madinah were prepared in a simple manner. The meat they ate had neither many spices nor much oil. They would just roast and consume it. I realized that the Prophet liked all the food. But generally a person likes one kind of food. If he likes everything, then he finds nothing special. When I read the incidents, I realized when the Prophet went to Madinah after migration, many people went along with him. This increased the population, while the resources were only few.
People faced difficulties. They would have no food to eat many times. The Prophet himself never had food to eat on several occasions. The above hadith on food are about the Ansar, or residents of Madinah. The Ansar were Muslims who were locals of Madinah. Whenever an Ansari came to know that the Prophet had not eaten food, he would invite the Prophet for food at his home. There would be 1 or 2 more companions with the Prophet. All would go to the Ansari's house. The Ansari would not make elaborate preparation. He wouldn’t even inform his family that he had invited the Prophet for food. The Ansari would just bring the Prophet home. At home he would ask the Prophet to sit. He would tell his wife that the Prophet had come with a few companions to eat food. His wife would say: You didn’t tell me earlier. We only have chapati, some olive oil and milk! He would tell his wife to get whatever was at home. This would be brought before the Prophet.
The Prophet would observe and understand the situation. He would exclaim: The food is very good! Olive oil is very good, chapati is very good and dates are so good! The Prophet would speak in such a manner so that his host didn’t feel embarrassed. The host felt that he had ordinary food to serve to the Prophet. He would serve the food to the Prophet in embarrassment. The Prophet would remark that the food is very good so that the host didn’t feel embarrassed. The Prophet praised some food items in Madinah. But he didn’t say this to express his love for that food item. This was a remark of kindness, it wasn’t meant to express his love for the dish. It was meant to honour the other person and make him overcome his embarrassment. It was an expression of kindness. It wasn’t an expression of the Prophet's love for food.
People take these expressions of the Prophet and exclaim that the Prophet loved so and so dish. It should be prepared with fervour. Then people come over to eat what the Prophet loved. We must understand that if we claim that the Prophet liked a certain food item, then our claim wouldn’t itself become true. The Prophet didn’t come to the world to tell us what he loved to eat. He didn’t come for this. These are things of the world. A person will eat according to his region. The Prophet's purpose was to be God's messenger. God didn’t send the Prophet to tell what he liked to eat. The Prophet was sent to convey God's message, tell us how to worship God, make people aware of the one God, inform about the Hereafter, which actions lead to Hell and which actions lead to Heaven. Telling people about this was the real purpose of the Prophet's life. Other things are of secondary importance. If you don’t lay emphasis on deeper issues and speak about trivial matters, then that would lead to a shift of emphasis. Overlooking important matters and being enthusiastic over trivial issues is wrong attitude.