![]() ![]() The 15 th-century coffee trading network was based in the Red Sea region with the Yemeni port of Mocha as its focal point. Sufi saints and merchants spread the practice of coffee-drinking to the geographically diverse – but intellectually and linguistically linked – Islamic Turkish Ottoman, Iranian Safavid, and South Asia Mughal empires that reigned from the 16 th to the 18 th centuries. They drank qahwa, the Arabic term for coffee, to stay awake during the night-long meditation and recitation zikr rituals (Ralph Hattox, 1985). Historically, coffee as a hot beverage was introduced to the world by the Sufi saints in 15 th-century Yemen. This was an erasure so immaculate that, as early as the 19th century, coffee drinking in India was identified with British colonizers colonial subjects either embraced or rejected the practice as a sign of Western modernity. While racist assaults on coffee no longer persist, the Islamic past of this dark brown beverage has been completely whitewashed. He can be seen overlooking the Black Moor serving coffee. The illustration depicts two English consumers and a turbaned Turk holding a cup of coffee and smoking tobacco, yet another exotic import. ![]()
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