3 ideas
Pilgrims carried home techniques and ingredients they met in the Hijaz, and dishes spread along pilgrimage routes as well as trade routes. The result is recognizable relatives of one dish, such as rice-and-meat preparations, turning up from West Africa to Southeast Asia.
Islamic dietary law bans pork and alcohol and requires halal slaughter, and these rules do more than take things out of a cuisine. They push cooks toward lamb, goat, poultry and beef, toward syrups, sherbets and fruit drinks instead of wine, and toward particular butchery and cooking habits. Seen this way, a food taboo generates the distinctive character of a cuisine as much as it limits it.
Many dishes across the Muslim world are regional versions of a common ancestor that spread with Islam and trade. Examples include harees or haleem (wheat pounded with meat), rice-and-meat dishes (pilaf, biryani, kabsa) and stuffed pastries (sambusak, samosa). Tracing one dish across regions shows which parts stayed fixed, such as technique and ritual role, and which parts took on local ingredients and spices.