it is, before all else, a human story. It begins with the worship of wine as a supernatural being: the bringer of joy. It climbs to the heights of dramatic inspiration, and descends to the depths of fraud, drunkenness, betrayal and murder. It involves passionate spiritual convictions, none more so than the Islamic belief that wine is too great a blessing for this world. It visits the physician at his task of healing, the politician in the act of cheating, the monk in his cell and the sailor at sea.
