The relationship between Islam and coffee has not always run smoothly though. Some Muslims believed coffee was an intoxicant and therefore is banned by Islamic law. In 1511, the governor of Mecca, Khair Beg, saw some worshippers drinking coffee in a mosque as they prepared for a night-long prayer vigil. Angered, he drove them from the mosque and ordered all coffeehouses in Mecca to be closed.
This incited the pro-coffee Muslims and a heated debate soon ensued. In this dispute, two unscrupulous Persian doctors, the Hakimani brothers, who were infamous for testifying on the side of the highest bidder, condemned coffee as an unhealthy brew.
The doctors had good reason for wanted it banned, for it was popular cure among the depressed patients who would otherwise have paid the doctors to cure them. The matter was only resolved when the Sultan of Cairo, Khair Beg's superior, intervened, demanding that a drink that was widely enjoyed in Cairo should not have been banned without his permission. Khair Beg soon paid for his insolence. In 1512, he was accused of embezzlement and the Sultan sentenced him to death.By the late 16th Century, the use of coffee was widespread throughout the Arabia, North Africa and Turkey.
The nutritional benefits of coffee were thought to be so great that coffee was considered as important as bread and water. So much so that a law was passed in Turkey making it grounds for divorce if a husband refused his wife coffee.
Wherever Islam went, coffee was sure to follow. With the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, coffee quickly spread to the Eastern Mediterranean. However, it is believed that no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until 17th Century, as coffee beans exported from the Arabian ports of Mocha and Jidda, were rendered infertile by parching or boiling. Legend has it that this changed when a pilgrim named Baba Budan, smuggled fertile coffee beans out of Mecca, strapped to his stomach. Returning to his native India he successfully cultivated the beans in Mysore.
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