Ask most British Muslim parents what they want for their children and you will hear about salah, about character, about maybe finishing the Qur’an. Fitness comes up rarely. Food comes up even more rarely, and usually only after a GP has said something about blood sugar.
That silence is fairly recent. If you read the sīrah, the recorded life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and the accounts of the generation around him, the body is not off to one side of the religion. It is in the middle of it, worked on deliberately, fed carefully, and never treated as a private matter that has nothing to do with faith.
Why strength counts as part of your deen
There is a well known hadith in Sahih Muslim, one of the two most rigorously verified hadith collections, in which the Prophet ﷺ said that the strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, while adding that there is good in both. Scholars have read that strength broadly: strength of faith, of will, of character. They have also read it physically, because the two are not easy to separate in practice. A tired, heavy, out-of-breath body makes every other act of worship harder than it needs to be.
The Qur’an puts it more directly in Surah al-Anfal, the eighth chapter, where the believers are told to prepare against the enemy whatever strength they are able to muster (8:60). Commenting on that verse, the Prophet ﷺ is reported in Sahih Muslim to have said, repeating himself for emphasis, that the strength intended is shooting. Not wealth. Not numbers. Skill with the body.
What the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions trained
The Sahaba, meaning the Companions who lived with and learned directly from the Prophet ﷺ, were not gym members. They were people whose ordinary week involved walking long distances, carrying things, riding, and working with their hands. On top of that base, certain skills were trained on purpose.
Archery is the clearest example, and the Prophet ﷺ is reported to have passed a group of his Companions competing at it and encouraged them to keep shooting. Horsemanship was valued enough that races were organised and the distances recorded. Swimming appears in the widely repeated instruction attributed to Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) that children be taught swimming, archery and horse riding. Scholars have differed about how soundly that particular wording is transmitted, so it is best not to quote it as a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, but the culture it describes is visible everywhere in the early sources.
Wrestling was part of it too. The sīrah preserves an account of the Prophet ﷺ wrestling one of the strongest men in Makkah. And in the Sunan of Abu Dawud, one of the four Sunan collections that gather hadith arranged by topic of law, there is the report of the Prophet ﷺ racing on foot with Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), losing once and winning later. A race between a husband and wife, recorded and preserved, because nothing about it was thought trivial.
Where martial arts fits
Nobody in Britain is likely to need mounted archery this year. What a decent martial art gives you is the same package in modern clothing: a body that can exert itself, a skill that takes years to acquire, and a room full of people who will notice if you stop turning up.
Grappling arts in particular do something that lecturing rarely achieves. They expose the ego quickly. You cannot pretend to be composed while someone more skilled calmly takes your balance, and you will be reminded, several times an evening, that patience is a physical habit before it is a spiritual one. The Prophet ﷺ described the strong man as the one who controls himself when angry, and there are few better laboratories for that than a sparring session where you are losing.
There is also the plain protective value. Being able to carry yourself, break a fall, stay calm in a scuffle, or simply walk home with a bit less fear is not vanity. For our daughters especially, it is closer to a duty than a hobby.
Things worth checking before you sign up
A few clubs come with baggage. Some traditional arts include bowing to a founder’s photograph, meditation framed around another religion’s beliefs, or oaths that sit awkwardly with tawhid, the belief that Allah alone is worshipped. Bowing as a respectful greeting between people is disputed among scholars and is best avoided where it resembles the posture of prayer, and ritual directed at an image should be declined outright. Most instructors, asked politely and privately, will adjust without any fuss.
Then there is modesty. Mixed adult classes involving close grappling are not suitable for everyone, and awrah, the parts of the body that must be covered, is not negotiable because of a uniform. Women-only sessions and brothers-only sessions exist in most British cities now, and plenty of clubs will run one if enough people ask. Adab, the manners and etiquette that govern how you treat people, applies in the training hall exactly as it applies in the masjid: you greet, you thank, you do not injure a training partner to win a round that nobody is scoring.
Eating the sunnah way: less, slower, better
The single most quoted instruction on food in the whole of the sunnah is about quantity. Reported in the Sunan of al-Tirmidhi, another of the four Sunan collections, the Prophet ﷺ said that a human being fills no vessel worse than his stomach, that a few morsels are enough to keep his back straight, and that if he must eat more then a third for food, a third for drink and a third for breath.
Read that next to the way most of us eat on a Friday night and the gap is uncomfortable. The Qur’an says the same thing in Surah al-A’raf, the seventh chapter: eat and drink, and do not be excessive (7:31). Alongside it sits the command in Surah al-Baqarah, the second chapter, to eat from what is lawful and tayyib (2:168). Tayyib means wholesome, pure, genuinely good for you, and it is a separate requirement from halal. A halal-certified chicken shop meal deal, eaten five nights a week, clears the first bar and fails the second.
The foods that keep coming up
Dates appear constantly, broken fast with them and kept in the house as a staple. Honey is described in Surah an-Nahl, the chapter named after the bee, as containing healing for people (16:69). Olive oil is praised in reports found in the Sunan collections, to be eaten and applied to the skin, from a tree the Qur’an itself calls blessed. Milk, vinegar, barley, gourd and cucumber all appear in the household.
The best known preparation is talbina, a thin broth made from barley flour and milk, sometimes sweetened with honey. Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) used to prepare it for the grieving and the unwell, and is reported in Sahih al-Bukhari to have transmitted the Prophet’s ﷺ words that it soothes the heart of the sick and takes away some of the sorrow. A warm, slow-digesting, unremarkable bowl of food, prescribed for a heavy heart.
How the Companions actually ate
Sparsely, is the honest answer. Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) described months passing in which no cooking fire was lit in the household of the Prophet ﷺ, their food being dates and water, softened by the milk that neighbours sent. The Companions were not on a wellness regime. They were people who ate when there was food, ate less than they wanted when there was plenty, and did not organise their week around meals.
They also fasted voluntarily beyond Ramadan, commonly on Mondays and Thursdays, which the Prophet ﷺ was reported to do regularly. That rhythm, weeks of ordinary eating punctuated by short deliberate hunger, is closer to what modern nutritionists have started recommending than anything in the average British diet.
Starting this week
None of this becomes real through admiration. Pick one training thing and one food thing and hold them for a month before adding anything else.
For training: book a single class at a club within walking or short driving distance, and go twice before you decide anything. Walking counts while you look. The Companions walked to the masjid and walked back, and there is barakah attached to those steps that no treadmill offers.
For food: stop eating at the point where you could comfortably eat more. That is the whole practice, and it is harder than any diet. If you want a second change, replace one takeaway night with something cooked at home, because you will eat less of it and you will know what is in it.
Bringing the children in
Children copy the household, not the lecture. If they see a parent train and a parent stop eating before the plate is finished, that becomes normal to them without a single conversation about it. Sign them up young, keep them in through the awkward years, and talk about why while you drive them there: that the body is an amanah, a trust you were handed and will be asked about, and that keeping it strong is part of what you owe for being given it.
Start with the walk to Fajr. The rest follows more easily than you would think.