Medieval Muslim Cuisine as A Real-Life Foundation for the Meat and Milk Prohibition in Ibn Ezra’s Biblical Commentary

Abstract

In his biblical commentary, R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1090–1164) occasionally voices the contention that the language, culture, and life-style of the Muslim world are capable of contributing to our understanding of contemporary aspects of biblical stories and laws. The current paper deals with the influence of Islamic culinary art in medieval times on Ibn Ezra’s Biblical commentary on the meat and milk ban. Ibn Ezra claims that the reality of the Arab kitchen, which includes the Bible lands, preserves the ancient ways of eating. Thus, we can understand the Bible ban in Muslim cuisine. According to the medieval dietary approach, cooking meat and milk is recommended because both products have similar properties. The meat of young goat healthier than lamb meat, so it is common to cook it. Muslims believe that the kid of a goat is better cooked in its own mother’s milk, because the two products derive from the same origin.

Keywords

• biblical commentary
• Islamic culinary
• Abraham Ibn Ezra
• Arab kitchen
• kid in its mother’s milk
• milk and meat
• Jewish food
• Maimonides
• humoralism
• doctrine of the four temperaments