“I never feel full unless I eat some bread,” a local Muslim friend once told me.

Bread plays an important part of life in my Muslim community.

For years, I observed odd treatment of bread in the neighborhood. I would see my friends and neighbors hang carefully tied bags of day-old bread on dumpsters. It mystified me that everything else went into the dumpster. Bread was the sole exception.

I soon discovered that Muslims never throw bread away. Even discarding stale or moldy bread was considered a sinful waste.

But until recently, I never quite understood why.

Hamed Ammar writes in his book, Growing Up in an Egyptian Village,

Bread is not only filling, but also possesses an aura of sacredness, being believed to be the essence of life. The [Arabic] name given to bread is aish which literally means life. It is profane to put bread on the ground, and every effort must be made to pick up any crumb that falls to the ground for fear of it being trodden on. … Children are also enjoined to kiss bread if it falls from their hands on the ground, and if they find it lying in the street to remove it into a crevice on the wall. They are punished if they throw bread from their hands when angry or annoyed, as this might make the baraka [blessing] fly from the house.

All those tidy little bags of old bread hanging on dumpsters are collected and salvaged by some hungry soul.

Whether they have access to fresh or stale bread, my Muslim friends need more than just physical aish.

One of my Muslim friends recently begged me for resources so she can learn more about Jesus Christ and the Bible. She is hungry for the Bread that truly satisfies, the Aish from heaven that gives eternal life.

Consider the impact of Jesus’ words in a culture such as this, where bread is equivalent to life.

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:48-51)

Understanding their sacred view of bread makes me all the more excited to tell my friends about Christ, the true Bread of Life.

May their hunger be filled by the Living Bread that comes down from heaven!

**This account comes from a long-term worker.**

Original article: FrontiersUSA.org/blog/article/sacred-bread