Sufra
{{other uses|Sufra (disambiguation)}}
File:An Iranian iftar meal (2).jpg meal upon a sufra]]
File:سفره هفت سین عیدنوروز.jpg]]
File:Ethnographic Museum-2.JPG]]
A sufra, sofra, or sofreh ({{langx|ar|سُفْرَة}}; {{langx|fa|سفره}}; {{langx|tr|sofra}}; {{lang-ka|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'.Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, vols 6-8 ed. Stanley Lane-Poole, 8 vols (London, 1863-93), I 1371.
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.Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed. by J. Milton Cowan (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1961), p. 413.
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.Paulina Lewicka, Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 416 {{ISBN| 9789004206465}}.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 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25728023 review] by Harfiyah Ball Haleem, Journal of Qur'anic Studies, 3 (2001), 113-15 (p. 115). 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.Faegheh Shirazi, 'The Sofreh: Comfort and Community amongWomen in Iran', Iranian Studies, 38 (2005), 293–309. Sufra can refer to a ritual meal among Shiite Muslims and Zoroastrians in Iran too.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. In Kazakhstan the sufra takes the form of a tablecloth on a low, round table, and is known as a dastarkhan,Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, Body, Sexuality and Health, ed. by Afsaneh Najmabadi and Suad Joseph (Leiden: Brill, 2003), III 109-11. and Pakistan dastarkhawn. The sofra is also an important ritual meal to members of the sufi Bektashi order.Mark Soileau, '[http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665961 Spreading the Sofra: Sharing and Partaking in the Bektashi Ritual Meal]', History of Religions, 52 (2012), 1-30. 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.Food Culture and Health in Pre-modern Islamic Societies, ed. by David Waines (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 158 {{ISBN|9789004194410}}.
The sufra has given its name to a Muslim-run community food scheme in the London borough of Brent, founded in 2013.Austerity, Community Action, and the Future of Citizenship, ed. by Shana Cohen, Christina Fuhr, and Jan-Jonathan Bock (Policy Press, 2018), p. 270, {{ISBN|9781447331063}}.