Taste My Punishment and My Warnings (Q. 54:39): On the Torments of Tantalus and Other Painful Metaphors of Taste in the Qur'an

Abstract

In this article, I investigate a hitherto neglected aspect of the Qur'an's alimentary universe, namely its literary, cognitive, and sensory dimensions of taste. Thus, this article does not unfold the ritual, legal, and food-historical contexts and interpretations of the Qur'an which have been the usual priority of scholarship and exegesis. As a point of departure, I call attention to the fact that food and drink not only provide nourishment and gastronomic delight, but may just as well foster strong affective and bodily reactions of displeasure and disgust. The border between appetite and it's antithesis can be fine. Indeed, gustation or taste (part and parcel of food and drink) is very often connected to pain, punishment, and disgust in the Qur'an. Furthermore, the notion of taste plays an important role as an epistemic metaphor. In this study, three dimensions of alimentary and gustatory dystopias will be given analytical priority. I conclude that taste and the alimentary constitute a basic sensory and highly affective register by means of which the Qur'anic voice aims to appeal to and inculcate in its audience the almost visceral urgency of its renewed monotheist message.