The Prophet's Clothing, Food, and Drink

The Shama'il devotes multiple chapters to the Prophet's clothing, food, and drink — not to elevate the mundane but because the Companions understood that even in these details, the Prophet modeled a way of living. His choices in these areas were neither ascetic to the point of severity nor indulgent in any direction, and the scholars drew rich guidance from the narrations preserved about them.

In clothing, the Prophet favored simplicity. He wore garments of cotton and wool, and the color white is mentioned most frequently as his preference. He also wore striped Yemeni cloth — a fabric prized for its quality — and there are narrations of him wearing green. He did not wear pure silk, which is forbidden for men, though he received silk garments as gifts and distributed them to others. His ring was silver with an Abyssinian carnelian stone, worn on the right hand according to some narrations and the left according to others, and on it was engraved 'Muhammad — Messenger of Allah,' which he used as his official seal on letters to rulers.

His food habits were modest. He did not eat while reclining. He ate with the right hand. He mentioned the name of Allah before eating and praised Allah after finishing. He would not criticize food: if he liked something, he ate it, and if he did not like something, he simply left it without remark. This principle — not criticizing food — was noted by Abu Hurayrah as a consistent practice across his life.

His preferred foods included dates, which he might eat alone as a meal. He loved watermelon and would eat it with fresh dates. He enjoyed honey. Among meats, he ate lamb and preferred the shoulder. Tharid — a dish of broth and broken bread — is described in multiple narrations as among the foods he praised. He ate bread with oil or vinegar when more elaborate food was not available. He did not always have bread at all: Aisha reported months would pass in which nothing was lit on their cooking fire except dates and water.

In drink, he drank water and honey, and he is reported to have drunk a mixture of dates soaked in water — nabidh — before it fermented, which is a matter scholars have discussed in detail regarding permissibility. He did not drink while standing, according to a hadith that some scholars interpret as a strong recommendation and others as a prohibition. He would breathe outside the vessel while drinking, taking the cup from his mouth between sips rather than drinking in one long draft.

Perhaps the most striking dimension of these chapters is what they reveal about the household circumstances of the Prophet. He was the leader of a growing state, receiving delegations from kings and commanding armies. Yet his household lived at a level of material simplicity that many of his poorest Companions struggled to match. Aisha described the Prophet's mattress as a piece of leather stuffed with fiber. He would go without food for days. He died with his armor pledged as security with a Jewish man for a quantity of barley. The Shama'il does not frame this as deprivation. It frames it as choice — the choice of a man whose relationship to this world had been fundamentally reoriented by his knowledge of what lay beyond it.