Omar and the Marvelous Coffee Bird
Kaldi and His Dancing Goats
THE LEGENDARY DISCOVERY OF THE COFFEE DRINK
From drawings by a modern French artist
Chapter III
EARLY HISTORY OF COFFEE DRINKING
Coffee in the Near East in the early centuries—Stories of its origin—Discovery by physicians and adoption by the Church—Its spread through Arabia, Persia and Turkey—Persecutions and intolerances—Early coffee manners and customs
The coffee drink had its rise in the classical period of Arabian medicine, which dates from Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya El Razi) who followed the doctrines of Galen and sat at the feet of Hippocrates. Rhazes (850–922) was the first to treat medicine in an encyclopedic manner, and, according to some authorities, the first writer to mention coffee. He assumed the poetical name of Razi because he was a native of the city of Raj in Persian Irak. He was a great philosopher and astronomer, and at one time was superintendent of the hospital at Bagdad. He wrote many learned books on medicine and surgery, but his principal work is Al-Haiwi, or The Continent, a collection of everything relating to the cure of disease from Galen to his own time.