Galland, in his analysis of the Arabian manuscript, already referred to, that has furnished us with the most trustworthy account of the origin of coffee, criticizes Antoine Faustus Nairon, Maronite professor of Oriental languages at Rome, who was the author of the first printed treatise on coffee only,[36] for accepting the legends relating to Omar and the Abyssinian goatherd. He says they are unworthy of belief as facts of history, although he is careful to add that there is some truth in the story of the discovery of coffee by the Abyssinian goats and the abbot who prescribed the use of the berries for his monks, "the Eastern Christians being willing to have the honor of the invention of coffee, for the abbot, or prior, of the convent and his companions are only the mufti Gemaleddin and Muhammid Alhadrami, and the monks are the dervishes."
Amid all these details, Jardin reaches the conclusion that it is to chance we must attribute the knowledge of the properties of coffee, and that the coffee tree was transported from its native land to Yemen, as far as Mecca, and possibly into Persia, before being carried into Egypt.
Coffee, being thus favorably introduced into Aden, it has continued there ever since, without interruption. By degrees the cultivation of the plant and the use of the beverage passed into many neighboring places. Toward the close of the fifteenth century (1470–1500) it reached Mecca and Medina, where it was introduced, as at Aden, by the dervishes, and for the same religious purpose. About 1510 it reached Grand Cairo in Egypt, where the dervishes from Yemen, living in a district by themselves, drank coffee on the nights they intended to spend in religious devotion. They kept it in a large red earthen vessel—each in turn receiving it, respectfully, from their superior, in a small bowl, which he dipped into the jar—in the meantime chanting their prayers, the burden of which was always: "There is no God but one God, the true King, whose power is not to be disputed."
A Bouquet of Ripe Fruit |
Flowers, Fruit, and Leaves |
| THE COFFEE TREE BEARS FRUIT, LEAF, AND BLOSSOM AT THE SAME TIME | |
After the dervishes, the bowl was passed to lay members of the congregation. In this way coffee came to be so associated with the act of worship that "they never performed a religious ceremony in public and never observed any solemn festival without taking coffee."
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Mecca became so fond of the beverage that, disregarding its religious associations, they made of it a secular drink to be sipped publicly in kaveh kanes, the first coffee houses. Here the idle congregated to drink coffee, to play chess and other games, to discuss the news of the day, and to amuse themselves with singing, dancing, and music, contrary to the manners of the rigid Mahommedans, who were very properly scandalized by such performances. In Medina and in Cairo, too, coffee became as common a drink as in Mecca and Aden.
The First Coffee Persecution
At length the pious Mahommedans began to disapprove of the use of coffee among the people. For one thing, it made common one of the best psychology-adjuncts of their religion; also, the joy of life, that it helped to liberate among those who frequented the coffee houses, precipitated social, political, and religious arguments; and these frequently developed into disturbances. Dissensions arose even among the churchmen themselves. They divided into camps for and against coffee. The law of the Prophet on the subject of wine was variously construed as applying to coffee.
About this time (1511) Kair Bey was governor of Mecca for the sultan of Egypt. He appears to have been a strict disciplinarian, but lamentably ignorant of the actual conditions obtaining among his people. As he was leaving the mosque one evening after prayers, he was offended by seeing in a corner a company of coffee drinkers who were preparing to pass the night in prayer. His first thought was that they were drinking wine; and great was his astonishment when he learned what the liquor really was and how common was its use throughout the city. Further investigation convinced him that indulgence in this exhilarating drink must incline men and women to extravagances prohibited by law, and so he determined to suppress it. First he drove the coffee drinkers out of the mosque.