القهوة ما بين التَّحريم والإباحة: الجدل الدِّينيُّ في أواخر العصر المملوكيِّ وبداية العصر العثمانيّ

Abstract

There is a general consensus between different sources that coffee was spread out from Yamen in the south of the Arabian Peninsula toward the other Islamic countries in the north since the late Mamluk era. Its spreading increased in the Ottoman era in the areas of the Middle East in the first half of the sixteen Century. The controversy and debate on the issue whether coffee use should be allowed or forbidden got strengthened in the Islamic countries, especially in the Middle East areas. However, the spreading of coffee in the popular area, the lack of religious arguments in favor of coffee banning, and the inability of shari’a theologists and rules to ban it, the debate started to focus on the moral and behavioral perspective resulting from coffee consumption.

Moreover, the Sufi movements in particular reinforced coffee spread and use, claiming that coffee helps in their religious activities. Such state of affair evoked a hot debate among Shari’a theologists of different schools and doctrines. They conceived of coffee and the Sufi behavior as heresy and contradict Shari’a. As a result of the debate in the eighteen century, coffee use was allowed and it spread as popular phenomenon in the houses and public coffee houses