clitoridectomy
See
circumcision
.
coffee
Coffee is one of the most widely consumed
brewed beverages in the world today, especially by
adults. It is a stimulating drink made from husks
and kernels obtained from berries of the coffee
tree that are dried, roasted, ground, mixed with
water, and then lightly boiled. Its story is inter-
woven with the history of Islamic religion, the
cultures of the Middle East and Africa, and their
early encounters with modern Europe. The story
is partly reflected in the English word coffee itself,
which came into the language in the 17th century
from Arabic qahwa by way of Turkish kahveh (the
Arabic letter w is pronounced as a v in Turkish).
The word café came into English via Arabic, Turk-
ish, and then French. Even the scientific name
for the tree that produces the most commonly
used coffee berry, Coffea Arabica, suggests the
beverage’s historical connection to the Arabian
Middle East. The tree was originally native to
Ethiopia in Northeast Africa, but it began to be
cultivated in Arabia during the 14th or 15th cen-
tury. In order to better understand the history of
coffee, one must trace how a berry native to Africa
came to be cultivated and used by a
rabs
to make
a tasty beverage called
qahwa, which then became
a favorite drink in Ottoman t
Urkey
and e
Urope
,
and then a global commodity grown in tropical
regions of Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean,
and especially in l
atin
a
merica
(the center of cof-
fee production today).
There are several imaginative accounts about
the discovery of coffee. The most familiar tale
among Europeans and Americans is that of the
Ethiopian goatherd who one day observed his
goats dancing about after eating coffee berries. He
tried the beans himself, found them to be invigo-
rating, and shared his discovery with a “monk,”
who then roasted them and concocted a brew that
allowed him and other monks to stay awake for
their nightly
prayer
s. A more historically valid
account is provided by Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, a
16th-century Muslim jurist, in a book he wrote
about coffee drinking. He mentioned reports about
a 15th-century Sufi shaykh known as al-Dhabhani
from y
emen
who observed people using
qahwa
for medicinal purposes during a visit to Ethio-
pia. Upon returning to Yemen, he also benefited
from using it, and he recommended it as a bever-
age to his Sufi brothers. They found that it gave
them more vigor and helped them stay awake on
nights when they had long prayer vigils and
dhikr
rituals. There are yet more accounts about coffee’s
origins, but they generally agree that cultivating
and drinking it began with the Sufis of Yemen.
By 1511, it had reached the holy cities of m
ecca
and m
edina
, and then Yemeni Sufis introduced it
to students and scholars at
al
-a
zhar
in c
airo
. In
the mid-1500s, coffee became a popular beverage
in the cities of s
yria
and Turkey, especially in the
Ottoman capital, i
stanbUl
. It later reached i
raq
,
i
ran
, and i
ndia
with the help of pilgrims returning
home from the
haJJ
to Mecca.
The coffee prepared in most of the Middle East
is served very black with the grounds still in it;
they are allowed to settle to the bottom of the cup
before drinking. The first places to serve it to pay-
ing customers appear to have been taverns where
wine was also available. In the 16th and 17th
centuries, it began to be served at coffeehouses
and streetside stalls in many Middle Eastern cit-
ies, where European travelers first began to notice
it. According to an 18th-century French travel
account, “All sorts of people come to these places,
without distinction of religion or social position;
there is not the slightest bit of shame in entering
such a place, and many go there simply to chat
with one another” (Hattox, 94). Storytellers and
poets entertained coffeehouse customers with folk
tales and epics about famous Muslim warriors
or, in the case of Iran, Persian kings and princes.
Today Middle Eastern men still frequent neighbor-
hood coffeehouses to do business; join friends to
play cards, backgammon, and chess; listen to the
radio; and watch soccer matches on television. At
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