I have heard that a Bedouin went to Muawiya [1st Umayyad Dynasty Caliph, 7th Century] and when the table was spread, Muawiya invited him to join. The Arab was hungry and ate like a famished boy. He ate from here, he ate from there, he ate from between the hands of Muawiya, who resented this and said, You are far from polite [literally, You are far from home]. The Bedouin answered, A stranger is always far from home, and he resumed eating, snatching away what was before the others, cutting meat with his teeth, and eating it while Muawiya seethed. At last he lost patience and said, Woe unto you man! What is your name? The Bedouin said, Luqman, at which Muawiya said, I attest you are true to the name.
-Kitab al-Tabikh, Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, 10th Century
Luqman is a common name with the secondary meaning “One who eats too much”, from the cognate noun luqma, morsel, or more vulgarly, grub, which on the trail the drovers called aseeda- our boiled millet breakfast, lunch, and dinner eaten from a common pot. None of the drovers was named Luqman, or Abu Luqma, or Ibn Aseeda, or even ‘Am Shay, Uncle of Tea.
We tried to be polite at the dinner bowl, eating only what was in front of each, no boarding house reach, not swiping extra milaah, sauce, from the other side. The youngest drover was charged with the aseeda making, which did the others no favor. Kamiyya, not Kayfiyya…Quantity, not Quality is a young cook’s watchword. KhairAllah only laughed, never seethed, at mealtimes watching khawajas eat with our fingers, dropping two morsels back into the pot for every one we choked down our throat. We were all true to our names on the trail. Abu ‘Isba’, Father of the Finger he called me.