Nutritional Concepts and Frequency of Foodstuffs Mentioned in the Holy Quran

Abstract

The Holy Quran is a religious book of Muslims. In many verses of Quran, various foods are discussed. It seems that limited studies were performed on identification the nutritional verses and their frequencies in the Holy Quran. Therefore, the aims of present study were to establish a numerical model system for studying nutritional verses of Quran, determination of verses with nutritional concepts and frequency of foodstuffs in the Holy Quran. In this descriptive analytical study, "Ghamoos e Quran" and "Vazheyab" online softwares were used to determine the nutritional keywords in Quran. For searching, translating, and interpretation of verses, "Noor-e-Jami Tafasir version 2.1"; "Zekr" and "Pars Quran"softwares were applied. Sixty-four nutritional keywords and 257 nutritional verses were identified. Findings indicated that aliment/foods, eating, water/drinking words, and their derivatives are repeated 171, 109, and 131 times in the Holy Quran, respectively. According to the Holy Quran, except Haram foods (pork meat, wine, carrion meat, blood, and meat of animals not slaughtered properly in the Islamic manner), all foods are tayyeb (lawful). The Holy Quran contains many foodstuffs and verses with nutritional concepts and it recommends eating varied and balanced diet.