Muslim culture question

I have a question that I need to know to proceed with a TL. I know muslims are technically not supposed to drink alchohal, but have they historically, and if so how much and under what circumstances, how common was it... ect? Is this similar to how a lot of Christians have sex before they are married? Thanks! Surprisingly hard to find out information about this...
 
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Is more Intrepretation and avoid Drunkess that drink it

Even when muslim we try to avoid alchol and anything take our judgement out of us(because that show the worse of us and you can make horrible sin when inembrigated/stonned) that someone(like me..sometimes) practice total temperance, so avoid alcohol the most possible.

Some other(both shia and Sunni) allow to drink moderarly and avoid overdrink to drunkess but recomend not drink alcohol unless necesary(ie not better drink or water is unsafe), remember during medieval times, wine was the safest drink until we start to boil water much later.
 

birdboy2000

Banned
Selim II of the Ottomans was a famous drunkard said to have invaded Cyprus for its wine. (I don't consider there to be much credence to that claim, but the very fact that people were spreading that rumor speaks to his reputation in that regard.) Though I'm sure the stringency of the prohibition varied dramatically with time, place, and sect.
 
I've seen my causin who's a Muslim get wasted and stoned when the young adults of the family have a get together. I asked him once and he just told it's all depends on the person weather or not they observe the no alcohol thing. :confused: Then again the guy ain't really an example of piousness.:rolleyes:

Hope that helps at least.
 
In Mughal times nobles drank a lot of wine and virtually had a monopoly on alcohol since it was technically legally prohibited, preventing regular Muslims from drinking it.
 
I think I remember that some Arabs say Mohammed *really* meant grape wine, and they drink an alcohol based on dates (dibs).
 
According to a recent survey in Turkey, %68,5 of the total population over 18 never drank alcohol. %8,4 used to drink but quitted. %16.2 consumes alcohol once in a month or less frequently.
 

katchen

Banned
And no doubt the Muslim prohibition on alcohol encouraged Muslims to seek other highs that were not haram. Such as hemp. (cannabis). And opium. Which helped the use of both to proliferate from Morocco to India.
 
There is a historical study by Peter Heine (Weinstudien) on the topic of wine in the medieval Islamic world. He comes to the conclusion that historically, not drinking alcohol was usually a mark of great personal piety, not a broader social habit. The ban was patchily enforced (in many areas it was more honoured in the breach than in the observance), and especially among the upper classes of traditional wine-growing areas (e.g. Persia, Syria/Palestine, Spain) drinking wine was an enforced social norm. Only few rulers ever bothered to take determined measures against the alcohol, and may drank themselves.

I think you could draw a broad parallel with the status of marihuana in Western Europe today. It is clearly and unequivocally illegal. It is also nearly universally available, and everybody knows people use it. In some cities, it gets consumed in public, people make jokes about it, it's even in the media. Some folk decide to abstain, which is respected, but also seen as a bit uptight. Occasionally, people go to jail for iut, but that doesn't deter other users because it happens rarely, and usually 'elsewhere'.
 
I. I know muslims are technically not supposed to drink alchohal, but have they historically, and if so how much and under what circumstances, how common was it... ect?

It depended greatly on which part of Arabo-Muslim world we're talking about. Places that had a tradition of winery maintained usually to have an alchool production for driking. Persia, Spain, Syria, North Africa...
However, in places that didn't have such, alchool consumtion was more anedcotic. Of course, it's worth noting that in the aformentioned regions, non-Muslims were often in charge of this trade, as it was considering forbidden by religion as well to gain from alchool trade even if you didn't drink it.
And, where you had Jewish and Christian population, you had wine consumtion that was pracited inside an islamized society and certainly had an influence : in places like Al-Andalus that had large non-Muslim populations, it certainly played a role.

But even in these regions, it was considered as a "deviant" attitude (more or less associated with debauchry, luxury or crypto-christianism), and prone to be used by legist/religious school and by rivals (that usually drank as well, more hidden). But in old wine production regions, particularly in Spain and neighbouring regions, it was an regular and widespread one up to the crisis that knew Arabo-Andalusian society make these behavior less acceptable but still current.
Again, in regions without wine tradition, or alchool production, it was more limited.

If you're interested, and understand french, I strongly advise you this recorded conference about "Wine and Wineyard in Islamic Spain"

So, wine consumption was relativly widespread in Mediterranean basin, but tended to be less accepted with time : razing wine markets, closing pubs, punishing drinkers...But even that didn't really prevented the consumption.

Is this similar to how a lot of Christians have sex before they are married?
Not exactly. It was more of a social convenance than a religious rule. Church didn't meddled with what happened in bed up to some time. It was less regulated than alchool in Arabo-Muslim world.
 
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There was plenty of medieval Persian poetry about wine and drinking - "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou" is only the beginning of it.
They say once a delegation of the faithful Arabs were shocked to see a fountain running with wine at the palace of a Caliph, which was definitely intended for consumption.
So there were periods and regions when and where wine drinking was considered to be a tolerated sin for a Muslim. But we must admit that the tendency, the trend was to prohibition with inevitable setbacks in certain regions and for certain periods.
There was not only Muslim Persian poetry of this kind, a lot of Muslim poets from different places and races wrote about drinking wine in most favorable context which reflects the periods when wine drinking was acceptable for a Muslim. Or to be more correct it was a period when Muslim society made an occasional twist towards secularism.

But one must be careful when reading about wine intoxication in Muslim poetry. In some Muslim sectarian poetries there was a set of cryptic code words and notions where "wine" stands for "religious extasy", "girl" stands for a "prayer" and the like.
Go figure...

In Mughal times nobles drank a lot of wine and virtually had a monopoly on alcohol since it was technically legally prohibited, preventing regular Muslims from drinking it.
I guess you mean the dynasty of Great Mughals of India.
IIRC before Aurengezeb the members of his dynasty were famous for drinking, as a matter of fact they liked to combine opium-taking with wine-drinking in huge quantities.

That was because the Mughals were the successors of the Mongol drinking tradition.
Before converting to Islam the Mongols of the Hulaguid Empire and the Golden Horde were very heavy drinkers. When they converted to Islam they somehow managed to keep that national tradition for some time.

It is funny how the newly converted Mongols celebrated the holidays of their new Muslim religion:
- three days they had a drinking party - a traditional Mongolian way to rejoice. And when we say "they drank" I mean they were totally wasted, stoned.
- then three days they fasted and prayed as good Muslims were supposed to do.
Such a nice combination of a national tradition and a new religion.

Even at the time of Tamerlane when Islam had already deep roots in Turko-Mongol society the tradition of heavy drinking stayed. Timer was said to gather thousands of his best warriors and they all drank for a few days in a raw, Tamerlane walking freely among them, dancing, singing and sincerely enjoying himself, wasted as hell. And at the same time Timur considered himself to be a defender of the Faith and a truly pious Muslim.
 
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The majority of the Mughal princes were notorious for their addiction to the drinks. Emperor Jahangir was the most famous drunkard and it is said that the occasion he was sober was rare. The other two sons of Akbar, Murad and Daniel died before their father due to the excessive use of alcohol. Pervez, the second and the favourite son of Jahangir predeceased his father due to the addiction to the liquor. Emperor ShahJahan, though was not known as a drunkard never stayed away from it but his weakness was women. The Emperor who built Taj Mahal in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz, kept seven thousand women in his harem and celebrated orgies with them! His second and fourth sons Shah Shuja and Murad Baksh were also addicts of the liquor. Aurangzeb was the rarest exception among the Mughal princes who totally avoided the drinking, but unfortunately he turned out to be a notorious fanatic.
 
There was Shāh Ismāil I, (July 17, 1487 – May 23, 1524), the founder of the Safavid dynasty which survived until 1736. He started his career as the leader of the Safaviyya, a Twelver Shia militant religious order. Ismail played a key role in the rise of Twelver Islam; he converted Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam.
Ismāil believed himself to be of divine descent—practically worshipped by his Qizilbāsh followers.

The Ottoman Empire defeated Ismail at the battle of Chaldiran in 1514.
After the Battle of Chaldiran, Ismail lost his supernatural air and the aura of invincibility.
That was the heaviest blow to him.

Do you think that he found consolation in his religion, in God, in prayer?
Nope.
He gradually fell into heavy drinking of alcohol.
Alcohol might be the reason of his death at the relatively early age of thirty-six.
 
I believe it depends on the location in the Muslim world. When I was in Iraq, alcohol was not illegal, but it was rare to see it sold or consumed. In Afghanistan it was illegal and I had a Afghan National Police chief show me some confiscated empty alcohol bottles.
 
It is clear that the alchool consumtion, after the XVI, begin to withdraw up to being socially unnaceptable eventually in the XIX and XX (as a rigorist reaction against westernisation)
That doesn't mean nobody drinks alchool (Morocco is famous for being a huge consumer) but it switched to an intimate use, being more or less close of a social taboo in some places, and more concerning strong liquors than wine as it was usually.
 
Nah, pretty much widespread socially. The main difference is that royal family doesn't risk shit when the population suffer more restrictions.
 
A little bit more about Safavid dynasty and alcohol:

A young Saffavid prince Hamza Mirza (died in 1586) was also a heavy drinker of alcohol. And he chose a lot of young Qizilbash officers as his drinking companions.


Shah Sulayman (1666-1694) was an alcoholic. The contemporary observer, Sie John Chardin, comments on the shah's astonishing ability to hold his liquor; no Swiss or German , he assets, could compete with him.

Shah Sultan Husayn (1694-1722) in his youth was of a pious and kindly disposition and was nicknamed 'Mulla Husayn' but he soon abandoned his austere way of life, and, like his father took to drink and dabauchery. Occasionally the forces of religion achieved a temporary success, as when 60 000 bottles of wine from the royal cellars were brought out and publicly smashed.
 
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