Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 140

overrated. This is not seriously affected
by the fact that transgressors have been
numerous, according to literary evidence.
The praise of wine, not uncommon in
pre-Islamic poetry, remained one of the
favourite topics also of Muslim poets,
and at the court of the Caliphs wine was
drunk at revelling parties as if no prohi-
bition existed at all. Even the common
people could not always and everywhere
refrain from their national drink, date
wine of several kinds; the caliph Umar b.
Abd al-Azīz deemed it necessary to pro-
mulgate a special edict in order to abolish
this custom.
Wine has a special place in the liter-
ary works of the mystics, where it is one
of the symbols of ecstasy. In this point
they only took over the language of their
Christian and non-Christian predecessors.
As early as Philo of Alexandria ecstasy is
compared with intoxication. Among the
Ibāiyya, language may have been a
reflex of practice; but this cannot be said
of ūfīs in general, who on the contrary,
clung to the ascetic methods of the via pur-
gativa . As to āfi's wine- and love songs,
it is an unsettled point whether they are
merely metaphorical or not.

the origin of wine to the two great civili-
sations which were neighbours to Islam,
that of Rūm and that of India.
The Book of Agriculture attributed to Ibn
Waiyya points out the importance
of the vine in the Fertile Crescent, and
alludes to wines in speaking of the various
types of grape which are suitable for their
manufacture.
The Arabs who settled in agricultural
regions had no real tradition of viticulture;
in fact, in pre-Islamic Arabia vineyards
were rare and wine-vaults even more so
(however, there were some in al-āif ).
The quality of the wine was mediocre,
and a certain amount must even then
have been imported, mainly by Jewish
and Christian merchants (after the birth
of Islam, this commerce was practised
exclusively by these two communities,
as a result of the urānic prohibition).
One should not suppose that the Bedouin
knew nothing of wine, nor that they drank
it to excess. The truth is that the ancient
Arabs were acquainted with wine, though
tasting it only on rare occasions such as
inter-tribal fairs.
The expansion of Islam enabled the
Muslims to familiarise themselves with
new regional types of wine, and the taste
of the consumers gained in refinement to
the extent that connoisseurs were able to
appreciate and distinguish between wines
of diverse origin; al-āi speaks even of
various “wine-producing regions” ( buldān ).
The poets of the Islamic era speak of
countries renowned before the advent of
Islam for the quality of their wines.
As regards the wine-making process,
the information that we have is not
very extensive. The grapes were trod-
den, with a light jumping movement,
in a maara (shallow vat), according to
an ancient procedure. Wine-presses of
circular motion were not introduced in
the Orient until very late (some ancient

(A.J. Wensinck)

2. As a product
Wine has been known in the Orient
since the earliest times, and Arabic lit-
erature preserves vague memories of its
legendary origin, not omitting to recall
the demonic aspect, in accordance with
urān V, 90-2. It takes account, on the
one hand, of Babylonian traditions linked
to Biblical characters such as Adam and
Noah and, on the other hand, of the Ara-
maic-Syriac extra-Biblical tradition, thus
symbolising that ancient culture of the
Fertile Crescent inherited by the mediae-
val Muslim world. Certain versions link