Respected teacher, you previously spoke about eating food that people distribute as votive offerings, but did not address this point: if we think it may have been prepared using money of doubtful origin, should we avoid it? When we take the precaution of not using these offerings at all, several questions arise. If someone brings one to our door and we refuse it, they may be offended. If we accept it but do not eat it ourselves, and instead give it to other family members or someone else, that does not seem right either. And throwing it away may not be right. Is it acceptable to discard such offerings? Or perhaps the gift is not a votive offering—for example, someone has an orchard and brings us some of its produce. What should we do in such cases? Please advise us.
What Should We Do About Doubtful Vows Brought to Our Home?
The essence and first answer at a glance (60-word summary)
When we are certain that an offering is doubtful, it is best to explain our concern to the person who brought it. If we are certain that the money or its source is unlawful, we must avoid it. Embarrassment should not keep us from fulfilling our religious duties, and we should steer clear of spiritually harmful food.
Answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat)
Teacher and researcher in the intellectual tradition of wisdom and the Ahl al-Bayt | Soroush Bamdadān Cultural CenterWhen we are certain that someone’s wealth or offerings are tainted by doubt, it is best to find some way to alert them. If you are certain that the wealth is unlawful, or that its source is unlawful, keep away from it. If the wealth or offerings are doubtful, it is better to avoid them, for they may lead to accepting what is unlawful.
In matters of truth, shame must not keep us from fulfilling our religious duties. We must guard against foods that poison the spirit, even when we fear that they may be poisonous.
No one should drink poison merely out of modesty or embarrassment.
“All that remained in our hands was Fadak. Some people begrudged us having it, so we willingly gave it up. God is the best of judges. What have I to do with Fadak, or anything besides it? Tomorrow, one’s place will be in the grave: there, in the darkness, a person’s traces disappear and their story is concealed. It is a pit which, even if made wider and the gravedigger works to enlarge it, the earth’s stones and clods will press it closed, and the piled-up soil will seal its openings.
“This is my soul: I discipline it through piety, so that it may enter the Day of Greatest Fear in safety and stand firm on the sides of the slippery path.
“Had I wished, I could have had the finest honey, the choicest grain, and garments woven of silk. But how unlikely it is that my desires should master me, or that greed should lead me to choose delicious foods, when perhaps in the Hijaz or Yamama someone has no hope of even one loaf of bread and has never known a full stomach! How could I sleep with a full belly while all around me are empty stomachs and burning hearts? Or live as the poet says:
“‘It is enough to bring you pain and shame that you sleep with a full belly, while those around you long even for scraps of hide to eat.’
“Shall I be content to be called Commander of the Faithful, yet not share their hardships or serve as their example in life’s bitter trials? I was not created to be distracted by good food, like an animal tethered at its manger, whose only concern is to eat fodder; nor like a beast left loose, rooting through rubbish heaps, filling its belly with weeds and ignorant of its master’s purpose in feeding it. Far be it from me that I should be left to my own devices, idle and purposeless, or that I should be the one who pulls the reins toward error, or wanders astray in confusion and bewilderment.
“It is as though one of you were to say: ‘If the son of Abu Talib eats so little, weakness and frailty will keep him from fighting his foes and standing against the brave.’ Know that trees growing in the wilderness have stronger wood, while those that grow lushly have thinner bark; desert plants burn hotter and take longer to die out. I and the Messenger of God are like two trees that sprang from the same root, and like the forearm and the upper arm.
“By God, if the Arabs joined forces to fight me, I would not turn away from confronting them. And if opportunity arose, I would hasten toward them—I would strive to cleanse the land of this misshapen, overturned creature (Mu‘awiya), until the gravel was sifted from the harvested grain.”
Nahj al-Balagha, translated by Ansariyan, p. 661