or, more freely, "Argument in favor of the legitimate use of coffee."
kahwa, is the Arabic word for coffee.
The author is Abd-al-Kâdir ibn Mohammad al Ansâri al Jazari al Hanbali. That is, he was named Abd-al-Kâdir, son of Mohammed.
Abd-al-Kâdir means "slave of the strong one" (i.e., of God); while al Ansâri means that he was a descendant of the Ansâri (i.e., "helpers"), the people of Medina who received and protected the Prophet Mohammed after his flight from Mecca; al Jazari means that he was a man of Mesopotamia; and al Hanbali that in law and theology he belonged to the well known sect, or school, of the Hanbalites, so called after the great jurist and writer, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who died at Bagdad A.H. 241 (A.D. 855). The Hanbalites are one of the four great sects of the Sunni Mohammedans.
Abd-al-Kâdir ibn Mohammed lived in the tenth century of the Hegira—the sixteenth of our era—and wrote his book in 996 A.H., or 1587 A.D. Coffee had then been in common use since about 1450 A.D. in Arabia. It was not in use in the time of the Prophet, who died in 632 A.D.; but he had forbidden the drink of strong liquors which affect the brain, and hence it was argued that coffee, as a stimulant, was unlawful. Even today, the community of the Wahabis, very powerful in Arabia a hundred years ago, and still dominant in part of it, do not permit the use of coffee.
Abd-al-Kâdir's book is thought to have been based on an earlier writing by Shihâb-ad-Dîn Ahmad ibn Abd-al-Ghafâr al Maliki, as he refers to the latter on the third page of his manuscript; but if so, this previous work does not appear to have been preserved. La Roque says Shihâb-ad-Dîn was an Arabian historian who supplied the main part of Abd-al-Kâdir's story. La Roque refers also to a Turkish historian.
Research by the author has failed to disclose anything about Shihâb-ad-Dîn save his name (al Maliki means that he belonged to the Malikites, another of the four great Sunni sects), and that he wrote about a hundred years before Abd-al-Kâdir. No copy of his writings is known to exist.
The illustrations show the title page of Abd-al-Kâdir's manuscript, the first page, the third page, and the fly leaf of the cover, the latter containing an inscription in Latin made at the time the manuscript was first received or classified. It reads: