{"id":99699,"date":"2025-08-08T16:24:46","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/?p=99699"},"modified":"2025-08-08T16:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:48:10","slug":"empty-stomachs-on-a-full-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/empty-stomachs-on-a-full-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Empty Stomachs on a Full Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Annisa Essack | kzn@radioislam.org.za<\/a>
\n8 August 2025 | 16:30 CAT
\n2 min read
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cAnd they give food in spite of love for it to the needy, the orphan, and the captive, [saying], \u2018We feed you only for the countenance of Allah.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/span> \u2014 Qur\u2019an 76:8-9<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I grew up in a home where the kitchen was always alive \u2014 pots bubbling, spices in the air, and family gathered around the table. Cooking was love made visible. But it was not at our table that I first saw the face of hunger. It was when my family cooked in great pots for people experiencing poverty, handing out warm meals to those who came with empty hands and hollow eyes. In those moments, I learned that food was more than taste \u2014 it was dignity, mercy, and life itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Qur\u2019an reminds us that feeding others is not an act of generosity for which we deserve praise \u2014 it is a duty done purely for the pleasure of Allah. Yet on an earth overflowing with blessings, more than a billion people still sleep with empty bellies. This hunger is not from the scarcity of rizq, for Allah has written sustenance for every soul, but from the injustice of those who hoard, waste, and forget their amaanah.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ache Beneath the Ribs<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Hunger is more than an empty stomach.<\/span>
It is the tightening of your chest when you cannot cry, the numbness when you can no longer even taste hope.<\/span><\/p>\n

Food has always been more than fuel \u2014 it is comfort, choice, celebration. A bite of something we love can bring a moment of peace in a storm. That is why the Prophet \ufdfa said: \u201cHe is not a believer whose stomach is full while his neighbour is hungry.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yet for millions, the simple comfort of bread is a distant dream. We live in a time when the world\u2019s leaders speak of equality and dignity, but the promises remain empty, like the bowls of people experiencing poverty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fields Without Souls<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Today\u2019s hunger is not just the result of drought or disaster \u2014 it is often artificial.<\/span>
Farming has been stripped of its soul, turned into an industry ruled by machines, chemicals, and greed. As seed activist Vandana Shiva calls it, this is the struggle of \u201coneness versus the 1%.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The earth has been poisoned, rivers run dry, and crops that grow are swollen with chemicals but starved of nutrition. Corporations own the land, the seeds, and even the water \u2014 the very gifts Allah created for all of humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature resists \u2014 pests adapt, weeds return \u2014 but the price is the slow death of the soil that feeds us. We are bleeding the earth that Allah entrusted to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Feast That Poisons<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Food now wears a mask.<\/span>
Beneath bright packaging and sweet flavours hides sickness \u2014 processed fats, mountains of sugar, and empty calories. What should nourish the body now acts like a drug on the mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even trends like\u00a0mukbangs<\/span><\/em> (a live or recorded online video where the host eats large amounts of food while chatting with viewers or reviewing the dishes), once meant to share a meal with strangers, have turned into spectacles of waste \u2014 people gorging for entertainment while millions starve.\u00a0It is not only excess, but also a blindness to the reality that hunger is the daily trial of so many.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Starvation We Inherited<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

In my postcolonial world, hunger is not just an accident of poverty \u2014 it has been used as a weapon.<\/span>
The British starved Bengal to feed their war effort, leaving bodies on the streets of Calcutta. The Irish famine, too, was no accident, but a human-made disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunger reveals the ugliest face of humanity. It humiliates, breaks the mind, and steals the will to live.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, some still dismiss it \u2014 or worse, offer substandard food in school meal programmes and call the problem solved. Feeding a child with poor nutrition is not kindness; it is cruelty disguised as charity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Amaanah We Will Answer For<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

The Qur\u2019an and Sunnah call us to act: feed the hungry, clothe the poor, honour the orphan. Hunger is not only a social issue \u2014 it is a spiritual test. Allah will ask us about every blessing we enjoyed while others went without.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cure is not in handouts of empty calories, but in ensuring access to real, wholesome food for all \u2014 food grown with respect for the earth, shared with sincerity, and given without expecting anything in return except the pleasure of Allah.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because on a full earth, no stomach should remain empty.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annisa Essack | kzn@radioislam.org.za 8 August 2025 | 16:30 CAT 2 min read \u201cAnd they give food in spite of love for it to the needy, the orphan, and the captive, [saying], \u2018We feed you only for the countenance of Allah.\u2019\u201d \u2014 Qur\u2019an 76:8-9 I grew up in a home where the kitchen was always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":99703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[132,5453],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-and-analysis","category-social"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/aec6a252612347156cde2e65c1779f8f.jpg?fit=736%2C564&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc0QIf-pW3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 12:11:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}