Eating little

Reducing food is the subject of the forty-seventh hadith of Ibn Rajab's additions: "No human being has filled a vessel worse than his belly. It suffices the son of Adam to have morsels that keep his back upright; if he must do more, then a third for his food, a third for his drink, and a third for his breath." ¹

Sufficiency is that the morsels keep the back upright, not that one be full. If the need arises, the belly is divided into thirds, and it is not filled entirely with food. The reason for the report was that the people of Khaybar were struck with fever through their excess of fruit, so excess in what is permitted was made a cause of illness. ¹

In this commentary it is part of asceticism. ¹