Date: 29/07/2022 Shift: 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Q. No: 98

IN 1633, THE OTTOMAN SULTAN Murad IV cracked down on a practice he believed was provoking social decay and disunity in his capital of Istanbul. The risk of disorder associated with this practice were so dire, he apparently thought, that he declared transgressors should be immediately put to death. By some accounts, Murad IV stalked the streets of Istanbul in disguise, whipping out a 100-pound broadsword to decapitate whomever he found engaged in this illicit activity.
Odd though it may sound, Murad IV was neither the first nor last person to crack down on coffee drinking; he was just arguably the most brutal and successful in his efforts. Between the early 16th and late 18th centuries, a host of religious influencers and secular leaders took a crack at suppressing the black brew.
Few of them did so because they thought coffee’s mild mind-altering effects meant it was an objectionable narcotic. Instead most, including Murad IV, seemed to believe that coffee shops could erode social norms, encourage dangerous thoughts or speech, and even directly foment seditious plots.
These crackdowns touched off in the 16th century because that’s when coffee reached much of the world. Coffee beans were likely known and used for centuries beforehand in Ethiopia, their point of origin. But the first clear historical evidence of grinding coffee beans and brewing them into a cup of joe dates—as the historian Ralph Hattox established in his book Coffee and Coffeehouses—to 15th century Yemen. There, local Sufi Muslim orders used the brew in mystical ceremonies, either as a social act to foster brotherhood, a narcotic to produce spiritual intoxication, or a pragmatic concentration booster. The drink soon spread up the Red Sea, reaching Istanbul in the early 1500s and Christian Europe over the following century.
In response, reactionaries cited religious reasons to outlaw coffee. Justifications included that coffee intoxicated drinkers, that it was bad for the human body, and that roasting made it the equivalent of charcoal (forbidden for consumption). Other religious figures charged that coffeehouses were natural magnets for licentious behaviors such as gambling, prostitution, and drug usage.