Shiba' (satiety) and moderation in eating

Satiety (shiba') is known both in language and as a technical term. ¹

Batna is the excessive filling of the stomach with food. ¹

Moderation is a manner of eating, and the most that suits a Muslim is to divide his belly into thirds: a third for food, a third for drink, and a third for breath, on the hadith that no human fills a vessel worse than his belly. Moderation keeps the body light, since satiety weighs it down and breeds laziness in worship and work. ¹ This applies to one whom little eating does not weaken; one whom it weakens does best to eat what brings him vigour for worship and a balanced body. ¹

Ibn al-Hajj divides eating into obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked and forbidden: obligatory is what keeps the body standing for the duty owed to God; recommended is what helps voluntary prayer and learning; permitted is lawful satiety; disliked is a little more than satiety that does no harm; forbidden is excessive eating that harms the body. ² Al-Nawawi holds it disliked to eat lawful food beyond one's fill; the Hanbalis allow eating much as long as it does not harm, and the disliking of a meal that leads to surfeit is also reported from Ibn Taymiyya. ^{2 3}

Where the necessity is expected to end, all the jurists agree that one compelled may eat carrion enough to keep him alive and safe from death; that eating beyond satiety is forbidden. ² They differ on whether one may eat to satiety. The Hanafis, the Hanbalis in their school, and Ibn Habib and Ibn al-Majishun among the Malikis hold that he may take only enough to keep him alive, since after that he is no longer compelled. The Malikis by the preferred view, and Ahmad in one report which Abu Bakr chose, allow eating to satiety, since necessity lifts the prohibition. The Shafi'is hold that if one expects lawful food near at hand, he may take only enough to keep alive; the preferred view is only enough to keep alive, unless he fears death if he stops there, in which case more is allowed and indeed required. ^{2 3} See the entries on eating, keeping alive, and necessity. ³