What Was the Extent of Wine Consumption in the Pre-Modern Islamic World?

Despite the prohibition against it, one always sees in histories of the Medieval/Early Modern Islamic world mentions of wine consumption, and, in some areas, quite a lot of cultural presence. Of course, wine consumption in the Bedouin heartland was likely minimal, but in areas such as Persia, Syria, and Anatolia where wine was plentiful in Pre-Islamic times, how widely was wine consumed?
 
Despite the prohibition against it, one always sees in histories of the Medieval/Early Modern Islamic world mentions of wine consumption, and, in some areas, quite a lot of cultural presence. Of course, wine consumption in the Bedouin heartland was likely minimal, but in areas such as Persia, Syria, and Anatolia where wine was plentiful in Pre-Islamic times, how widely was wine consumed?
Wine was an important GrecoRoman trade good and most South Arabian civilizations bought it.
 
Aden – Arabia Eudaimon was called the fortunate, being once a city, when, because ships neither came from India to Egypt nor did those from Egypt dare to go further but only came as far as this place, it received the cargoes from both, just as Alexandria receives goods brought from outside and from Egypt
.

— Gary Keith Young, Rome's Eastern Trade: International Commerce and Imperial Policy
 
— Gary Keith Young, Rome's Eastern Trade: International Commerce and Imperial Policy

That's not exactly what I meant by "bedouin heartland", I meant the inland deserts.[/QUOTE]

Oh well anyways to answer your other question Shiraz was an extremely important wine region and minorities drank it in private as did Muslims.

North Africans did and do as well, at least Berbers. A friends went into the Atlas and ate pork as well as drank wine they said "We were Berber before we were Muslim". Seems like isolated minorities and wealthy people who flaunt custom continued the practice.
 
I mean, Sultan Selim "the Sot" fought a war largely for Cypriot wine, so at least the elite was drinking in Ottoman times...
 
Wasn't the famous mathematician and poet Omar khayam, known for tavern hopping and womanising all over eastern Persia in the 12the century?
 
It's hard to quantify, but wine-drinking is well-attested throughout the Islamicate space all over the Classical and post-Classical periods.
As others said, it seems largely a religious minorities and Muslim elites thing, but note that "minorities" made what is likely the numerical majority of the population before the ninth or tenth century.
 
Basically, where Muslim-held wineyards presents (mostly for vinegar, grape-juice, must and arrope, tough : wine wineyards in these regions were mostly handled by Christians or Jews), you had wine-drinking, even if wine tended to be more and more imported by the XIth century.

It was particularily present and tolerated socially in al-Andalusian regions (and its North African cultural "satellites), but it was common along the old mediterranean world as well at least up to Persia. As said by other people, the presence of Christian and Jewish sizable presence up to the XIIth century clearly supported the existence of a more or less "hidden" drinking outside palaces and salons (where it was clearly present).
Outside Andalus, Maghrib and Ifriqiya (basically the whole Islamic West), tough, it tended to be less openly tolerated and more easily pointed out as deviant for what matter non-courtly or intimate consumption. Tended.

https://acrh.revues.org/5992?lang=en
https://webtv.univ-nantes.fr/fiche/3800/francois-clement-vignes-et-vins-dans-l-espagne-musulmane (If you understand French, it's particularily interesting and doesn't dwell only on Spain)
 
I mean, Sultan Selim "the Sot" fought a war largely for Cypriot wine, so at least the elite was drinking in Ottoman times...
Murad IV was known to consume quite a bit of alcohol despite the ban he had imposed. IIRC, he died from cirrhosis of the liver.
 
In relation to the above posts:

1. Wine was consumed covertly within homes as it is now. There is not a plethora of evidence for this however, simply a logical estimation.

2. Khamr as a term did not include drinks similar to wine but not alcoholic and thus not prohibited by sharia. Such items can be mistaken by western scholars as wine.

3. Sunni opinions on wine were not the only ones. Other groups, such as the Ghulat often had no ruling on wine consumption. As well, some Shi'i regimes and areas gave little to no ruling on wine or more famously, opium and marijuana.

4. Large communities of non Muslim peoples resided within Dawlah Islamiyyah and likely were the majority of the population of the state from the conquest by Umar till the Anarchy of Samarra. Most of these communities had no ruling or actively promoted and used alcohol for rituals or general consumption.

With those things said, let us discuss the opinion of the rulers of Islam and the effects that had upon the people of the Khilafah. I will cut this into two parts, one dealing with only Muslim and the other on the wider section of the populace.

1-A The status of those within the fold of Islam.

1.1 All forms of Islamic law of any major school of the four present during the reigns of the Abbasid till modern times, forbid the Muslim to consume the alcohol or khamr that brings intoxication.

The schools of Islam differ in terms of the punishment, however it's consumption carried a punishment for second offenders in all cases. One difference however was the speed at which a person would receive punishment assuming the person was a Muslim.

Some scholars interpreted that a cultural affinity to alcohol excused a second offence in terms of consumption, this is the traditional opinion of Maliki madhab, that a cultural tradition can excuse a sin until that cultural tradition is stamped out by way of the truth of Allah and his Caliph.

In the same, all madhabs agreed on the effects of alcohol on a Muslim in regards to his relation with Allah. As in:

- The consumption of alcohol damaged one's taqwa or his piety. By consuming it, he loses his earthly earnest vigour for Allah and his words lose meaning. In addition, it puts him at risk for greater sins, those which bring more fierce punishments and those that force one to leave Islam.

- The consumption further, weakened one's Imaan, or his faith in Allah. By weakening one's Imaan you were opening the door to heresy and the gifts you would receive in the hereafter would be taken from you or lessened.


Another position agreed upon in Sunni schools is; the extent to which one can drink and be a Muslim. The act of drinking carries with it a great sin, however, it alone does not remove one from Islam, unless the person actively claims that he can drink it as if it is halal. If a person says that an item which Allah forbib, is halal, that person is kafr and either not a Muslim or made a kafr at that moment of speech; his only respite is to go through the punishment which could be execution and beg pardon from Allah.

Thus if a Muslim drinks said drink and continually repents, he is a sinner, yet not a kafr. However, after a certain level, he will be punished until he relents from such things.


1.2 The Muslim as a whole despite naming differed in the extent to which they were Muslim in a sense. Berbers for instance were only slightly Muslim during the Umayyad period and remained so for long periods of time.

Iran and the Far East for instance had Islamic communities who essentially were far removed from the laws of the period and thus could practice somewhat more. However, also on these Far frontiers of Islam were Khawarij who implemented even stricter notions of Sharia upon its people often giving execution for the consumption of alcohol and the banning of consumption of haram items on both Islam and kafr.

So it is a difficult topic to say. However, in near all cases, alcohol consumption publically would warrant a grevious punishment in the main areas of Islam and outward sell of such things would bring likely a penalty unplayable on earth.

2-B

2.1 The stance of the Dawlah (the dynasty)was as directed by the Ulema and Ummah to direct society in the direction of Allah as given by his word and the words of Muhammad (SAW).

What this entailed was that the state was to seek all forms of deviancy or fitnah and either uproot them or force into hiding. This meant that all forms of kufr were to be hidden beneath a veil and not let into the public square so for the people to see and copy. This prohibition included the Christians and non Muslim.

A cross was to be hidden and not shown as it was a symbol of disbelief and paganism. The same ruling applies for alcohol, if a Christian believed it is permissible to consume wine, then he does as he wishes, however, if he publically consumes or sells, his business is to uprooted and he is to be punished. As the person in that moment broke the truce and actively promoted that which Dawlah does not allow.

2.2 Seeing this, the deconstruction of these practices was permissible and allowed in a Dawlah. To see a wine stand meant breaking it and burning it, in fact Muslim were allowed to vandalize objects seen as not within Islam unless th particular object was protected by a truce.

Thus, the Dawlah enforced a top down system of policing of haram items with locals doing the prosecuting if need be and the Dawlah legislating the actions and legitimizing the activity. So you did not just have a state enforcing the prohibition of alcohol but also individual Muslims, typically males.
 

cgomes

Banned
It probably went down like the no-alcohol Christian denominations.

They do drink it, but on the down low, and the more hypocritical ones'll be preaching against it all the time while having their little guilty pleasure.

And well, I never heard anything about Hashish being Haram, any muslims here can correct me, but Moroccan hashish is famous for a reason.
 
Wine was consumed covertly within homes as it is now. There is not a plethora of evidence for this however, simply a logical estimation.
Actually, we do have several evidence ranging from litterary (depictions of drunkyards emirs or general of andalusian taifas is almost systematical, and are only but a depiction of more...reasonable courtly usage but as well popular use as depicted by Ibn Shuhayd*), pictural and archeological evidence : wine-glasses in Fatimid Egypt are a good exemple.

François Clément, mentioned above, more or less leans thanks to this, to describe wine consumption as part of courtly codes and convenenances up to the XIIIth century.

*As summarized by François Clément, describing Ibn Shuhayd participating to a Christian feast : "cups glass all around, his lover and him are comfortable, these Christians are a sympathic lot, Youpee if you pass me the expression"


The covert consumtion really breaks down by the XIIIth at the earliest, and doen't get that widespread that soon : you need to wait the Late Medieval crisis of the Arabo-Islamic world to really have such significant usage in the mediterranean basin.
 
They do drink it, but on the down low, and the more hypocritical ones'll be preaching against it all the time while having their little guilty pleasure.
Not in medieval times, at least not on wine-producing regions (or close to). While not exactly preached for, it's almost a litterary trope to see preachers or fuqaha going great lengths to disnounce that while admitting they can't do but as everyone doing it.

Again, it was as open you could get into courts as salons, while technically more discret (and by discret I mean "let's find out a terace out there handled by a Christian/Jew/Muslim that attempt to argue that he have the right to serve wine because...look do you want wine or not?")

And well, I never heard anything about Hashish being Haram, any muslims here can correct me, but Moroccan hashish is famous for a reason.
I'm not sure you really serched this deep : al-qanib was often pointed as equally haram to wine, because both were enebriating, while tolerable for medical purposes.
Morrocan hashish became famous for the same reason that coca in Latin America or pavot in Afghanistan : it's a roughly local production that went trough massification for trade purposes as you had a huge market that couldn't produce itself.
 
Actually, we do have several evidence ranging from litterary (depictions of drunkyards emirs or general of andalusian taifas is almost systematical, and are only but a depiction of more...reasonable courtly usage but as well popular use as depicted by Ibn Shuhayd*), pictural and archeological evidence : wine-glasses in Fatimid Egypt are a good exemple.

François Clément, mentioned above, more or less leans thanks to this, to describe wine consumption as part of courtly codes and convenenances up to the XIIIth century.

*As summarized by François Clément, describing Ibn Shuhayd participating to a Christian feast : "cups glass all around, his lover and him are comfortable, these Christians are a sympathic lot, Youpee if you pass me the expression"


The covert consumtion really breaks down by the XIIIth at the earliest, and doen't get that widespread that soon : you need to wait the Late Medieval crisis of the Arabo-Islamic world to really have such significant usage in the mediterranean basin.

Those descriptions of course could be slander. Also, you mention the Taifa and Fatimids, my answers were much more forwarded to Islam and society during the Abbasid caliphate before the 900s.
 
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