Angels Tapping at the Wine-shop's Door: A History of Alcohol in the Islamic World

by Rudi Matthee

Islam is the only major world religion that resists the juggernaut of alcohol consumption. In many Islamic countries, alcohol is banned; in others, it plays little role in social life. Yet, Muslims throughout history did drink, often to excess--whether sultans and shahs in their palaces, or commoners in taverns run by Jews or Christians.

This evocative study delves into drinking's many historic, literary and social manifestations in Islam, going beyond references to 'hypocrisy' or the temptations of 'forbidden fruit'. Rudi Matthee argues that alcohol, through its 'absence' as much as its presence, takes us to the heart of Islam. Exploring the long history of this faith--from the eight-century Umayyad dynasty to Erdogan's Turkey, and from Islamic Spain to modern Pakistan--he unearths a tradition of diversity and multiplicity in which Muslims drank, and found myriad excuses to do so. They celebrated wine and used it as a poetic metaphor, even viewing alcohol as a gift from God--the key to unlocking eternal truth.

Drawing on a plethora of sources, Matthee presents Islam not as an austere and uncompromising faith, but as a set of beliefs and practices that embrace ambivalence, allowing for ambiguity and even contradiction.

Genres: History, Islam

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Rudi Matthee serves as the John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Delaware, where he teaches Middle Eastern history, with a research focus on early modern Iran and the Persian Gulf. His books include The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730 (Cambridge University Press, 1999); The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900 (Princeton University Press, 2005); Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan (I.B. Tauris, 2012); and, with Willem Floor and Patrick Clawson, The Monetary History of Iran. From the Safavids to the Qajars (I.B. Tauris, 2013). He co-edited, with Beth Baron, Iran and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Nikki R. Keddie (2000); co-edited, with Nikki Keddie, Iran and the Surrounding World, 1501-2001:Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics (2002); and, with Jorge Flores, Portugal, the Persian Gulf and Safavid Persia (Peeters, 2011). He has also published numerous articles on aspects of Safavid and Qajar Iran. He served as president of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, 2009-2011. He received the 2006 Albert Hourani Book Prize, awarded by the Middle East Studies Association of North America, the Saidi Sirjani Award, 2004-2005, awarded by the International Society for Iranian Studies, the British-Kuwaiti Friendship Book Prize, 2012, and, twice, the prize for best foreign-language book on Iran from the Iranian Ministry of Culture.

Reviews

[Kaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rated this book 4 stars due to its virtue of expanding on a subject that is in much need of scholarly discussion, rather than because of its merits per se. Mathee provides a wide-ranging (therefore broad, not deep) insight into attitudes and practices regarding alcohol consumption in the Islamic world from the birth of Islam until the present day.

I must make it clear that this is a secular and historical text rather than a religious or even contemplative one. Mathee offers only a brief chapter on alcohol in Islamic revelation/law and dedicates the greater part of the study to providing examples of when, where, why, and how Muslims have imbibed over the centuries in the Arab and Persianate cultural spheres. I was tempted to list the dearth of religious/jurisprudential context and commentary as a drawback of the study, but on reflection I would put it forth as a success on Mathee’s part to avoid trudging through in-depth jurisprudential debates about the status of alcohol and what that means for the spiritual lives of Muslims across the world. The jurisprudential and spiritual ramifications of wine or drinking culture in the Islamic world ought to be maturely explained by Muslims themselves - Mathee does right to provide a purely descriptive account of alcohol consumption and in so doing evades the sensitive question of what such historical facts mean for Islam.

That being said, a more in-depth explanation of the ‘logic’ of fiqh rulings on alcohol would have illuminated much of the book’s content, and the chapter on wine in Islamic art/literature I found to be slightly lacking in scope. Yes, the study requires some economy of content given its ambitions to cover such a large area over such a long period of time, but the overwhelming relevance of (wine) literature to the area/time addressed warrants slightly more detail and exegesis of the works referenced.

I recommend this book primarily as reference material and a ‘diving board’ from which one can discover more detailed and comprehensive studies of alcohol in Islam from a historical or religious perspective. The key message here is that alcohol has been present in pretty much the entire Islamic world across all time periods, though it’s status and use has been in constant change and flux - for such is the nature of religious belief and practice.