Page 9 - ISLAM Rock n Roll

The word ‘co ee’ comes from the Turkish ‘kahve’ which is derived from the Arabic ‘qahwa’. Co ee began its journey to the Muslim world and Europe from Yemen where the co ee-berry was cultivated (Yemeni co ee plantations shown here) and where Su s used it to remain alert during their long devotional practices.
By the end of the 15th century, co ee was available throughout the Muslim world. Its consumption became controversial when some ʿulamaʾ likened it
to alcohol, an intoxicant, and deemed it impermissible to consume.
Co ee was also censured because some ʿulamaʾ and rulers regarded co ee-houses as hotbeds of impious behaviour and rebellion. Co ee-houses, like the one in Istanbul shown here in a 19th-century painting by the Turkish Armenian painter Megerdich Jivanian (d. 1906), were male abodes whereas women consumed co ee in private as shown below in an 18th-century French painting of an Ottoman woman and her server. During the 16th century the Ottomans imposed a tax on co ee and at various times both co ee and co ee-houses were banned, most famously under the sultan Murad iv (r. 1623–1640).
Ottoman traders introduced co ee into Europe between the 16th and 17th centuries. European co ee-houses and paraphernalia were o en replete with Ottoman references including co ee tokens produced in London (shown opposite) inscribed with a ‘Turk’s head’. Referred to as a ‘drink of the Muslims’, attempts were made to ban co ee. Pope Clement viii (d. 1605), who liked its taste and preferred its e ects to those of alcohol, then sanctioned the drink. By the mid-17th century, co ee, co ee- houses or cafés, along with chocolate, tea and tobacco became fashionable. Cafés became places for literary, political, and economic gatherings. A London co ee-house opened by the publisher Edward Lloyd (d. 1713) in 1686 was frequented by merchants, seamen, traders and brokers. Eventually, Lloyd’s café became Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers. But there were also e orts to ban co ee- houses in Europe owing to their potential to foment political dissent or as alleged in a London women’s petition (shown below right), the drink’s ability to make men ‘feeble’ and ‘dull-witted’.
coffee