Metaphors of healthy and balanced nutrition in Mathnawi

Today, the fact that obesity, which develops due to unbalanced nutrition, causes physiological and psychological disorders, especially chronic diseases, leads humanity to a new search in the field of diet. Our study will examine the metaphors related to healthy and balanced nutrition in Mathnawî-i Sharîf, one of the leading Islamic works that looks at human beings in the integrity of soul and body from the perspective of diet and riyādah concepts. Our study will examine the effects of individual requirements, the ideal time between meals, homeostatic and hedonic hunger, and psychological state on nutrition, which are discussed in the field of dietetics today, in terms of the methods of self-cleansing and asceticism mentioned in the Mathnawi, and will be based on the question of to what extent these methods provide sustainable dietary success and permanent behavioral change. Our study, which examines the rich content of Mathnawi with a multidisciplinary approach in terms of nutrition and dietetics, a dynamic and up-to-date field, is based on a literature review on the basic assumptions of the field of nutrition and mysticism. In order to examine the subject in a holistic manner in light of current knowledge in the field of dietetics, all the couplets in the Mathnawi that we find directly related to nutrition and diet are analyzed in the existing literature. In our study, the numbering of the couplets was based on Veled İzbudak's translation of the Mathnawi published by the Ministry of National Education, and the couplet texts were taken from Ahmed Avni Konuk's commentary. As a result of this study, it has been determined that the gradual and temperamentally appropriate riyādah methods used for self-cleansing offer techniques to help individual diet planning for sustainable behavioral change in dieting. Jalal al-Din al-Rumi(d.672/1273), who categorized the number of individual needs in terms of 'the state of need, fuzûlî, and nafsaniyyah', suggested the ideal time between two meals through the concept of appetite sâdiq and kâzib, suggesting prolonged fasting compatible with intermittent feeding. Rumi, who states that there is a positive correlation between psychological state and nutritional behaviors, emphasizes that the spiritual mode has a positive and negative effect on the food eaten and presents the relationship between halal food and spiritual satisfaction through the epigenetic process to today's dietetics field.