In Ali's home, the meal is not divided into starter, main course, and dessert: a simple leather mat or cloth (the sufra) is spread on the ground, and everything is placed on it together — barley bread, a bowl of curdled milk, a bowl of dates, sometimes a pot of broth. One eats with the right hand, shares with others, and frugality is both a virtue and a necessity. Sweet (dates, honey) and savory (bread, broth, legumes) coexist on the same cloth, without any imposed order.

Two pillars of the 7th-century Arab table: the date, sugar of the desert and sacred provision, and barley, the grain of the poor and the ascetic. Ali, renowned for his sobriety, had made them the staples of his caliphal table, refusing the luxury of white wheat and fatty meats.