الملح
A mineral seasoning recommended to begin and end a meal with, and described by commentators as protective and balancing.
سَيِّدُ إِدَامِكُمُ الْمِلْحُ
“The chief of your condiments is salt.” (meaning, not a literal translation)
Salt's status as a near-universal condiment across nearly every historical cuisine gives this saying intuitive resonance regardless of its weaker chain, which is likely part of why it circulated widely despite the attestation issue.
Ibn al-Qayyim discusses salt as an essential seasoning that aids digestion in appropriate quantity, while also warning against excess. He treats it as a substance where the classical guidance and his own caution against overuse anticipate, in broad terms, the same moderation modern nutrition now recommends for different, more specific physiological reasons.
Modern nutrition science has extensively documented the relationship between excess dietary sodium and hypertension, making salt a rare case on this site where the classical caution against excess and current medical consensus point in a very similar direction, even though the underlying reasoning differs completely.