Transliteration:( Yaaa ayyuhal lazeena aamanoo kuloo min taiyibaati maa razaqnaakum washkuroo lillaahi in kuntum iyyaahu ta'budoon )
"O you who believe! Eat from the good things [362] which We have provided for you and be grateful to Allah if it is indeed Him that you worship [363]." (Kanzul Imaan Translation)
From this verse, two key points emerge:
Necessity of Eating: Just as worship is essential for spiritual life, eating and drinking are necessary for physical sustenance. The energy gained from food enables believers to fulfill their daily duties.
Wholesome and Lawful Consumption: Believers are commanded to consume only wholesome and lawful food. True Taqwa (God-consciousness) does not mean abstaining from permissible and good food, but it is about avoiding all forbidden things.
Two important lessons emerge from this verse:
Gratitude is Essential: Showing gratitude for every blessing, such as the food we receive, is as important as worship itself. The command to show gratitude is on par with the command for worship, illustrating that gratitude for Allah’s provisions is a form of worship.
Focus on Believers: The verse addresses believers, implying that the guidelines for eating and gratitude are meant for them. Non-believers are not bound by these rules, and the Islamic authorities cannot force them to adhere to the dietary laws.
The tafsir of Surah Baqarah verse 171 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Baqarah ayat 170 which provides the complete commentary from verse 170 through 171.
(2:172) Believers! Eat of the pure things wherewith We have provided you for sustenance and give thanks to Allah[170] if it is Him that you serve.
170. The believers are told that if by having believed they have committed themselves to following the Law of God as they claim then they should abandon all taboos and prohibitions imposed by the pundits and priests, by the rabbis and church fathers, by the monks and recluses, and by their own forefathers. Although they were required to abstain from whatever had been prohibited by God, they ought to feel no compunction with regard to consuming all that He had permitted. This has also been alluded to in the saying of the Prophet reported in a Tradition in the following words: ‘Whoever prays in our manner, turns towards our qiblah (in Prayer), and eats (the flesh) of our slaughtered (animals), that person is Muslim. (Bukhari, ‘K. al-Salah’, 28; ‘K. al-Adahi’, 12; Muslim, ‘K. al-Adahi’, 6; Nasai, ‘K. al-lman’, 9; ‘K. al-Dahaya’, 17 – Ed.) This means that in spite of praying and facing towards the qiblah, a person is not fully assimilated into Islam as long as he maintains the pre-Islamic taboos in matters of eating and drinking and holds on to the fetters of superstition forged by the victims of Ignorance. A person’s adherence to these taboos is indicative of the fact that the poison of Ignorance continues to flow in his veins.
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