The Islamic virtue of temperance and food security: evidence from Cape Town, South Africa

Sumaya Hassan

Chapter 10 in Food Security and Islamic Ethics, 2025, pp 237-264 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Overindulgence is widely regarded as a serious social problem in South Africa, leading to obesity and associated medical and psychological issues. This study investigated overindulgence from the perspective of Islamic studies. In the Muslim tradition, overindulgence is regarded as a vice, which is contrasted with the virtue of temperance in the Qur’an and the Hadith. There is a long tradition of Muslim virtue ethics that draws from Greek philosophy but also from medieval Arabic sources. Even though the virtue of temperance is praised and the vice of overindulgence is frowned upon in Muslim communities, this does not stop overindulgence amongst Muslims, not even in the holy month of Ramadan. This may be understood in terms of the classic problem of moral formation, where it is recognized that virtue cannot be taught. Knowledge of the good does not suffice for the realization of the good. Using a qualitative approach, I investigated the perceptions of such considerations found within ten Muslim households associated with the Rylands and Belhar mosques, selected by the local Imam. The study found several determinants of overindulgence within the selected Muslim households, namely, food insecurity, spiritual apathy, emotional eating, conspicuous and hedonistic consumption, as well as social environmental cues. However, food insecurity was exclusive to the Muslim community of Belhar, who differ from the largely Malay inhabitants of Rylands in terms of socio-economic status, compared with the predominantly Indian population of Rylands with a higher socio-economic status.

Keywords: Food in security; Temperance; Cape Town; Overindulgence; Muslim households; Spiritual apathy; Emotional eating; Conspicuous consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035333578
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