Sufra Explained

A sufra, sofra, or sofreh (Arabic: سُفْرَة; Persian: سفره; Turkish: sofra; Georgian: სუფრა) is a cloth or table for the serving of food, or, in an extended sense, a kind of meal, associated with Islamicate culture.

Forms of the sufra

The word comes from the Semitic root s-f-r, associated with sweeping motions and with journeys (also giving rise to the word borrowed into English as safari). According to E. W. Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, the basic meaning of the word was 'the food of the traveller', 'food that is prepared for the traveller ... or for a journey'.^[1]

However, the term also referred to a kind of bag in which a traveller would carry food: this traditionally comprised a circular piece of skin or cloth, with a drawstring running round the circumference. Food could be placed in the middle and the drawstring pulled to create a bag in which to carry the food. When it was time to eat, the bag could be placed on the ground and the drawstring released, creating a surface from which to eat the food.

By extension, the word also came to mean a platter (of wood or metal) from which food could be served, or even simply a dining table.^[2]

Islamic tradition has it that the Prophet customarily ate from a sufra, with his right hand, while seated on the floor, and eating in this way has at times been seen as a good practice for Muslims.^{[3] [4]} Traditional family dining in Iran and Afghanistan involves a sufra (known in Afghanistan as a disterkhan) in the form of a mat placed on the floor or a carpet. By extension, the term can refer to a meal with religious significance at which women gather and pray in both Iran and Afghanistan.^[5] Sufra can refer to a ritual meal among Shiite Muslims and Zoroastrians in Iran too.^[6] In Kazakhstan the sufra takes the form of a tablecloth on a low, round table, and is known as a dastarkhan,^[7] and Pakistan dastarkhawn. The sofra is also an important ritual meal to members of the sufi Bektashi order.^[8] In Ṣafawid Persia, around the seventeenth century CE, one of the official roles in the royal kitchen was the sufrači-bāshī, in charge of arranging the cloth sufra on the floor.^[9]

The sufra has given its name to a Muslim-run community food scheme in the London borough of Brent, founded in 2013.^[10]

Notes and References

1. Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, vols 6-8 ed. Stanley Lane-Poole, 8 vols (London, 1863-93), I 1371.
2. Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed. by J. Milton Cowan (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1961), p. 413.
3. Paulina Lewicka, Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 416 .
4. Al-Ghazali on the Manners Relating to Eating: "Kitab Adah Al-Akl". Book XI of The Revival of the Religious Sciences: "Iḥyāʾ ʿUlum Al-Din", trans. by D. Johnson-Davies (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2000), ch. 1, cited in the review by Harfiyah Ball Haleem, Journal of Qur'anic Studies, 3 (2001), 113-15 (p. 115).
5. Faegheh Shirazi, 'The Sofreh: Comfort and Community amongWomen in Iran', Iranian Studies, 38 (2005), 293–309.
6. Sabine Kalinock, 'Supernatural Intercession to Earthly Problems: Sofreh Rituals among Shiite Muslims and Zoroastrians in Iran', in Zoroastrian Rituals in Context, ed. by Michael Stausberg (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 531–46.
7. Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, Body, Sexuality and Health, ed. by Afsaneh Najmabadi and Suad Joseph (Leiden: Brill, 2003), III 109-11.
8. Mark Soileau, 'Spreading the Sofra: Sharing and Partaking in the Bektashi Ritual Meal', History of Religions, 52 (2012), 1-30.
9. Food Culture and Health in Pre-modern Islamic Societies, ed. by David Waines (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 158 .
10. Austerity, Community Action, and the Future of Citizenship, ed. by Shana Cohen, Christina Fuhr, and Jan-Jonathan Bock (Policy Press, 2018), p. 270, .