Recently due to my Grandma passing away we had huge numbers of people over at our house. Inititially afsos, then the usual routine how-you-doings, and then khatam at the end. Now i don’t know about what happens in the rest of the world but here in UK we usually arrange food for people who come n go. So we ordered huge amounts of food in anticipation of the guests and some days there was quite a lot of leftovers - when i say this i mean roti/nan, salan and chawal etc. We distributed what was left amongst the neighbours, or gave it to people to take home if they’d come from far etc.
HOWEVER we still ended up with a binliner full of leftover nan/roti. This was accumulated by either waste food at the end of the day OR when people had eaten n left crusts etc. Now i want to know that obviously a binliner full of roti is not your average ill-feed-it-to-the-ducks. Plus it is illegal in the UK to start dumping bits of roti around cuz it attracts rats n all.
Now usually when we have surplus leftovers in the house we do feed it to the pigeons as Dad is very strict about these things but now we are left wondering what to do. I mean we can’t just throw all that roti away, and neither can we feed it to the ducks in the park n whatnot. So in this situation what would one do? And if i was to throw the roti away which i will probably end up doing today or tomorrow - what would the Islamic position be on this?
And since i’m on the topic of food, what food can we throw away ? I mean someone tells me that it is only Roti that you can not throw, but other food stuffs e.g. salad, salan etc is allowed. Help me out will ya..
Do you know anyone with a dog or other large animal that can eat the roti? Thats what I'd probably do, give it to someone who has one or a few large animals. Or I'd take it, cut it up in small pieces with a blender or something and feed it to birds where its allowed.
Wala tusrifu inahu la yuhibul musrifeen ... meaning
and waste not by extravagance.Verily, He [Allaah] likes not Al-Musrifuun
[those ho waste by extravagance]
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As Dai_sista has said, we should try and be as careful as possible as not to waste food or water.
It might be an idea to find out from your local library if there's any housing in the local area where the homeless reside. We have a homeless centre near where i live, and also an Islamic Information centre where many umarried and unemployed Mulsims often gather. There are also widowers and other non-working women to who provisions are distributed by the small Muslim community in our area. Food is normally sent to them if anyone wishes to do so, and they do appreciate it, Alhamdulillah. If you were in london, you could have sent it this way, so that we could have taken care of it in our local area.
Anyway, do check with your local library or council if you're not sure. A good idea would be to invite a handful of homeless people to your home, if you know of any, and feast them to God's blessings.
But be careful not to waste the food. Inshallah you'll find people to give it to.
Niyaz, although I'm not 100% sure is probably a farsi word- I'm guessing from bay-niyazi - means needy. I think Niyaz was food that was given away to the needy.
In our terminology it probably amounts to the same thing but for example we tend to give out "Niyaz", i.e. food or fruit or drink in the Mosque for the Esaalay Sawaab of Marhoomeeen, in other words on behalf of the marhoomeen to people who come to the Mosque for Salah etc. Although there aren't many people who would classify as needy, I still believe one gets Sawaab for feeding worshippers.
I can not believe people eat when they go for taaziat (afsos). If anything they should take some cooked food with them to give some comfort to the people who are going thru this.
Some people never change. I can't believe you guys are still doing these stupid things in Britain.
