Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
āīs
signed the protocol of the assem-
bly. Only the then
muftī
of Mecca dared
to decline his co-operation and became
therefore the object of damaging suspi-
cions. By putting the questions in a clever
way they were at the same time able to
get an opinion condemning coffee from
the
faīhs
of Cairo. The rescript which
ānū issued in reply to the protocol
sent to Cairo did not completely fulfil the
hopes of the opponents of coffee as it con-
tained no absolute interdiction but only
allowed measures to be taken against any
concomitant features contrary to religion.
Ibn aar al-Haytamī, as late as about
950/1543, had a vigorous discussion, at
a wedding feast (
walīmat urs
) where cof-
fee was offered to the guests, on the new
beverage with a prominent
muftī
, who
declared it intoxicating and forbidden.
Ibn aar refers to the assembly above-
mentioned and cannot find words strong
enough to condemn its decision and the
manner in which it was reached.
In accordance with this verdict, āir
Bey forbade the taking and sale of coffee
and had a number of vendors punished
and their stocks burned, so that coffee
husks (
ir
) disappeared from the market.
But ānū's rescript again gave the cof-
feedrinkers courage and when in the next
year one of the leading opponents of coffee
was subjected to disciplinary punishment
by a high official from Egypt and āir
Bey was replaced by a successor who was
not averse to coffee, they were again able
to enjoy with impunity the beverage, to
which these measures had only attracted
the attention of wider circles. Only occa-
sionally do we read of action being taken
thereafter against disgraceful proceedings
in coffee-houses. An edict forbidding cof-
fee issued by the Ottoman sultan dur-
ing the a in 950/1544 was hardly
respected at all.
In Cairo coffee was first made known
in the first decade of the 10th/16th cen-
tury in the Azhar quarter by ūfīs from
Yemen, who held their
ikrs
in the
mosque with their associates from Mecca
and Madīna while partaking of coffee.
After it had been publicly sold and drunk
there for a time, the
faīh
Amad b. Abd
al-a al-Sunbāī, famous as a preacher,
declared it forbidden in 939/1532-3.
Two years later in a meeting for exhorta-
tion in the Azhar mosque he so incited
his hearers against the beverage that they
fell upon the coffee-houses, made short
work of their contents and maltreated the
occupiers. The difference of opinion thus
emphasized caused the
āī
Muammad
b. Ilyās al-anafī to take the opinions
of prominent scholars; as a result of per-
sonal observation of the effects of coffee
he confirmed the opinion of those who
considered the beverage a permitted one.
Although in the following years coffee was
from time to time for brief periods for-
bidden in Cairo, the number of its devo-
tees, even among the religious authorities,
steadily increased.
Several notable theologians had given
fatwās
in favour of coffee, for example,
Zakariyā al-Anārī (died 926/1520),
Amad b. Umar al-Sayfī (d. 930/1523-
4), Abu 'l-asan Muammad al-Bakrī
al-iddīī (died between 950 and 960/
1543-1553), who in verses in praise of
coffee also gives the advice that the opin-
ion of Ibn Abd a should be set aside
and the
fatwā
of Abu 'l-asan followed.
Gradually the view came to prevail that
coffee was in general permitted (
mubā
),
but that under certain circumstances the
other legal categories could be applied to
it also.
Intercourse with the holy cities and with
Egypt brought coffee to Syria, Persia and
Turkey. Rauwolf in 1573 found the bev-
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