by Mehrdad Kia
Arab nomads lit a bonfire of tamarisk, willow, and other desert scrubs in the earthen fireplace dug into the center of the tent. The guest of honor was motioned to the spot on the carpet between the hearth and the partition that separated the women’s quarters from the men’s. Sometimes the ceremony of preparing the coffee took a full hour, during which the host and his guest sat in dignified silence. Preparations began by roasting the beans and then crushing them in the mortar—a music dear to the ears of desert Arabs. The coffee pots essential to desert hospitality were then placed in the ashes of the bonfire to simmer. It was an indignity among the Arabs if the coffee served to a visitor was made by women. Often the son of the sheikh (the chief of the clan or tribe) prepared the coffee as a sign of respect for the visitor. When the coffee was ready, an empty cup was handed to the guest, who returned it declaring: “May you live.” The coffee was then poured into the cup by the host and handed to the guest. As the guest began to drink, a voice would declare, “double health,” and the guest would reply, “Upon your heart.” Only after the cups had been passed around once or twice, and all the necessary phrases of politeness had been exchanged, could the business of the evening be discussed. Smoking a pipe went hand in hand with drinking coffee.
Aside from coffee, the other popular drink among the Turks, as well as many residents of the empire in the Balkans, was boza, a type of malt drink, which was most probably brought by the Turks from Central Asia. The popular drink differed slightly according to region, depending on crops available and local customs. It was made from corn and wheat in Anatolia, and wheat or millet in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria. From Anatolia and the Balkans, boza spread to other Ottoman provinces, such as Egypt, where it was prepared from barley and drunk by boatmen of the Nile and many among the lower classes. Boza had a thick consistency and a low alcohol content with an acidic sweet flavor. The Ottoman army units consumed boza because it was rich in carbohydrates and vitamins. Numerous boza makers accompanied the janissaries.
Boza production was an important component of the Ottoman urban economy. During the reign of Selim II (1566–1574), boza consumption ran into government restriction when a new brand of the drink, laced with opium, was introduced to the market. The Ottoman government once again imposed restrictions on alcoholic beverages, including boza, during the reign of Mehmed IV (1648–1687), but consumption of the drink continued. By the 19th century, the sweet and non-alcoholic Albanian boza that was consumed in the imperial palace had triumphed among the masses.
Other drinks and beverages unique to a particular region or district were produced locally. As with food, drinks varied from one region and district of the empire to another, depending on ingredients available. The people of Vlorë (Vlora), in southwestern Albania, produced a white honey with an aroma of musk and ambergris that they mixed with 20 cups of water to make a delicious sherbet or pudding, while the people of Gjirokastër in central Albania drank red wine, reyhania, and Polish arrack. In Albania, where fruits such as grapes, pears, apples, cherries, pomegranates, and chestnuts were abundant, the popular drinks consisted of red wine, grape juice flavored with mustard, reyhania, sour-cherry juice, honey mead, and boza. In the Kurdish-populated eastern Anatolia, “the renowned beverages and stimulants were poppy sherbet, pomegranate sherbet, rice water sherbet, rhubarb sherbet, wine boiled to a third and canonically lawful, apricot julep, and hemlock sherbet.”
Coffee kiosk (house), on the port (Istanbul). William H. Bartlett. From Julie Pardoe, The Beauties of the Bosphorus (London: 1839).
Wine
Though wine was prohibited in Islam, Ottomans of all ranks and social standing deviated from the precepts of the ¸seriat (Islamic legal code) and drank wine regularly at various parties and gatherings. A European diplomat who lived in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 17th century wrote that although it was forbidden and banned by Islamic law, “wine was commonly used” and “publicly drunk” without any “caution or fear” of causing any scandal. He admitted, however, that high government officials were often worried about their image as wine drinkers. He also observed that drinking was often judged in connection to the age of the drinker; thus its use by young men was often tolerated and excused, but it was a scandal and a crime for an old man to drink an alcoholic drink. Less than half a century later, the wife of an English ambassador who visited Istanbul from 1717 to 1718 was shocked when one of her Ottoman hosts, a man of power and status, drank wine in her presence with the same ease and freedom as the Europeans did. When she asked her host how he could allow himself the liberty to enjoy a drink that had been denounced by his religion, the Ottoman dignitary fired back that all of God’s creations were good and designed for the use of man. In his interpretation of Islam, “the prohibition of wine was a very wise maxim,” but it was meant for the common people and the prophet Muhammad had never designed to confine those who knew how to consume it with moderation.
Outside the ruling elite, the Bektaşi dervişes, who believed that their spiritual status absolved them from the prohibitions of Islamic law, consumed wine and arak. At some of their convents in the 19th century, they had their own vineyards and produced their own wine. The traveler Evliya Çelebi also mentioned the consumption of wine and arak, a clear, colorless, unsweetened, aniseed-flavored distilled alcoholic drink, known as “lion’s milk,” in the port city of Izmir, which had a large Greek population. Arak was used not only in various parts of Anatolia but also throughout the Balkans and the Arab provinces of the empire. Katib Çelebi also made note of wine consumption when he visited a Christian monastery on the island of Chios, where an annual fair and a popular festival organized by the local church allowed the Christian population to enjoy a variety of local wines.
Though allowed to drink at home or private parties, non-Muslims were prohibited from consuming wine in public. Periodically, the central government imposed severe restrictions on consumption of wine as a means of displaying its power and authority and as a preemptive measure against social disorder. The severity of restrictive measures seems to have also been affected by the degree of pressure from hard-line religious groups, and the level of willingness on the part of the reigning sultan to appease them. Thus, during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, and yet again under Murad IV, the Ottoman authorities imposed rigid restrictions on the consumption of wine.
Besides wine and arak, another popular beverage among the Ottomans was a drink called Arab sherbet, made from a mixture of pounded raisins and hot water that were left in a wooden tub to ferment for several days. If the “process of fermentation was too slow, lees of wine were added.” In the beginning, “the liquid tasted excessively sweet, but then it became more acid and for three or four days was delicious, especially if cooled with ice, which was always obtainable” in Istanbul; “but it did not keep well for longer as it quickly became too sour.” In its later state, the effects of the Arab sherbet “were as strong as those of wine,” so it is not surprising that “it came under the religious ban on alcoholic drinks.”
Tobacco
The consumption of coffee, tea, and even boza went hand in hand with smoking tobacco, which was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in the early 17th century. Some have attributed the introduction of tobacco to Dutch merchants, while others have blamed the English. Yet others have maintained that because it had originated in the New World, tobacco “must have reached the Ottoman Empire via Europe, either from Italy or over the Habsburg-Ottoman border,” where janissaries “who often fought in that area” came into contact with the new product and contributed to its spread and popular use. Regardless of the route it took to enter the Ottoman domains, the introduction of tobacco was immediately denounced by religious classes. The şeyhülislam issued a strongly worded fetva that denounced smoking as “a hideous and abominable practice” contrary to the precepts of the Quran. The proponents, however, refused to back down and argued that smoking was not mentioned in the Quran, and there was, therefore, no legal ground for its prohib
ition.
The historian Peçevi, who had expressed his vehement opposition to coffee, joined the conservatives in attacking “the fetid and nauseating smoke of tobacco.” He wrote that the English infidels had brought tobacco:
in the year 1009 (1600–01), and sold it as a remedy for certain diseases of humidity. Some companions from among the pleasure seekers and sensualists said: “Here is an occasion for pleasure” and they became addicted. Soon those who were not mere pleasure-seekers also began to use it. Many even of the great ulema and the mighty fell into this addiction. From the ceaseless smoking of the coffeehouse riff-raff the coffeehouses were filled with blue smoke, to such a point that those who were in them could not see one another. In the markets and the bazaars too their pipes never left their hands. Puff-puffing in each other’s faces and eyes, they made the streets and markets stink. In its honour they composed silly verses, and declaimed them without occasion.
Peçevi admitted that he had “arguments with friends” about tobacco and smoking; “I said: Its abominable smell taints a man’s beard and turban, the garment on his back and the room where it is used; sometimes it sets fire to carpets and felts and bedding, and soils them from end to end with ash and cinders; after sleep its vapour rises to the brain; and not content with this, its ceaseless use withholds men from toil and gain and keeps hands from work. In view of this and other similar harmful and abominable effects, what pleasure or profit can there be in it?” To these questions, his friends responded that smoking was “an amusement” and “a pleasure of aesthetic taste,” to which he fired back that there was “no possibility of spiritual pleasure” from smoking, and his friends’ answer was “no answer” but “pure pretension.” He further argued that tobacco had been on several occasions “the cause of great fires” in Istanbul, and “several hundred thousand people” had suffered from these fires. Peçevi conceded that tobacco could have limited benefits such as keeping the night guards on various ships awake during the night, but “to perpetuate such great damage for such small benefits” was neither rational nor justifiable.
The government imposed a ban on smoking during the reign of Murad IV, but the authorities could not enforce it. The sultan’s prohibition “served only to drive smokers underground.” As in the case of coffee, the conservatives were forced to accept defeat. After numerous arguments and reversals, tobacco was finally declared legal in a fetva issued by the chief mufti Mehmed Baha’i Effendi, “himself a heavy smoker who had been dismissed and exiled for smoking in 1634.” Evliya Çelebi, who was a contemporary of the mufti, rushed to his defense and argued that the ruling was not prompted by the religious leader’s own addiction, but “by a concern for what was best suited to the condition of the people, and a belief in the legal principle that all that is not explicitly forbidden is permitted.”
Production of tobacco was legalized in 1646, and in a few years the crop was cultivated on large scale across the empire, where climatic conditions permitted. The introduction of tobacco contributed to diversification in agricultural production. It also reinforced family farming, since it required a large concentration of manual labor and individual care. Unlike wine, both production and export of tobacco were taxed. Once legalized, “the combination of coffee and tobacco” became “the hallmarks of Ottoman culture, inseparable from hospitality and socialization,” and the two quickly emerged as the first “truly mass consumption commodities in the Ottoman world.”
During the second half of the 19th century, Ottoman tobacco exports from most production centers increased dramatically. With the invention of mechanically rolled cigarettes, Ottoman tobacco became highly prized for blending, especially by American manufacturers. With the rise of nationalist revolts among the sultan’s Christian subjects, however, the empire began to lose the best tobacco growing lands in the Balkans. The newly independent states, particularly Bulgaria, profited from the acquisition of these profitable lands that increased significantly during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Regardless, by the beginning of the First World War in 1914, tobacco had emerged as the leading export item from Anatolia.
Opium
In sharp contrast to the harsh and repressive measures adopted against wine, coffee, and tobacco, the Ottoman state was unusually tolerant of opium consumption, which was produced “in the form of pastes” that contained the drug. Several European visitors to the Ottoman Empire observed that consumption of drugs “was widespread among the Turks,” and at least one attributed the love and fascination for opium and other drugs to the fact that the Ottomans “did not drink wine, or at least not in public, and the punishments for being found drunk were very severe.” Many Ottoman sultans were fond of the popular narcotic, and we know that it was also frequently used by members of various Sufi orders in their rituals and ceremonies. This may explain why the opium produced in Anatolia and Arabia was widely available in Istanbul and other major urban centers of the empire.
The 17th-century traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that in the town of Afyon-Karahisar, in southwestern Anatolia, where poppy was cultivated, many artisans and their wives took opium. He also claimed that in some places, males spent much of their time in coffeehouses because the use of narcotics by both men and women caused frequent “domestic disputes.” Another observer living in 19th-century Egypt reported that though the use of opium and other narcotics was not very common in the country, some took it in the dose of three or four grains. Many Egyptians also made “several conserves composed of hellebore, hemp, and opium, and several aromatic drugs,” which were “more commonly taken than the simple opium.” By 1878–1880, opium was listed as one of the eight most important export commodities next to wheat, barley, raisins, figs, raw silk, raw wool, and tobacco. The state regularly drew revenue from taxing the sale of opium pastes.
Aside from opium, Ottoman Turks “smoked a green powder made from the dried leaves of wild hemp,” which “was sold freely everywhere in Istanbul,” and the “noisier and rougher types of men found pleasure in meeting together and smoking” it “in hookahs, the Turkish pipe with the smoke inhaled through water.” 153 Another popular narcotic was tatula, or “Satan’s herb,” a “yellow seed resembling Spanish pepper and about as big as a lentil.” 154 Since it was a highly potent and dangerous drug, tatula, which was smuggled in to Istanbul and other large urban centers of the empire by Jewish merchants, was usually bought from a trusted pharmacist. Ottomans believed that the most dangerous form of drug use was “to smoke a mixture of opium and tatula.”
12 - GAMES AND POPULAR SPORTS
Ottoman Turks were fond of various games and sports. As warriors who migrated from the steppes of Central Asia, they brought their ancient sporting tradition to Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Middle East. They were superb riders, archers, and javelin throwers. Hunting and wrestling also numbered among their favorite pastimes. In addition to learning how to read and write and studying various sciences, the iç oğlans, or the pages of the palace, and particularly the acemi oğlans, or those novices who were trained as janissaries, received physical training and gained skills in horseback riding, weightlifting, wrestling, archery, sword training, tomak (a game played with wooden swords), and javelin throwing, or cereed (cirit/jerid).
CEREED
One of the most popular sports among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia was polo, which had originated in ancient Iran as a form of training for Persian cavalry units. The game took the form of a miniature battle, and both men and women of the Persian nobility participated in it. From Iran, polo travelled to India, Central Asia, China, and Japan. Among the Turks, polo gradually transformed itself into a new game. Also played on horseback, cereed was a javelin chase and an outdoor equestrian team sport. The objective of the game was to score points by throwing a blunt wooden javelin at an opposing team’s horseman. In the Arabic of Egypt, where it was popular among the Mamluk ruling elite and Ottoman military units stationed in the main urban centers of the country, the game was called “La’b al-Djerid.” The actual form
of the cereed, and the length of the wooden javelin that was used during the game, varied from one region of the empire to another. In Egypt, the cereed “consisted of a palm branch stripped bare of its leaves.”
Two teams of horsemen—numbering 6, 8, 12, 20, or even 30, on each side—faced each other across an open field perhaps 50 yards wide, the flag of their team flying above them. Dressed in traditional costumes, they armed themselves with long, heavy wooden sticks. The game began with the youngest rider galloping towards the opposing team, calling the name of a player, and tossing a cereed at him, challenging the man to enter the game. As he trotted back to his side, the challenged rider pursued him and threw a cereed in his direction. Another player from the first team rode out and met the rider who had just thrown his cereed and was retreating, chasing the man and trying to intercept him as he threw a cereed at his body. Many could throw the blunt wooden javelin over a great distance, and some caught the cereed thrown at them. Chasing, fleeing, and all the while trying to hit an opponent with the long wooden stick and avoiding a hit from a rider on the opposite team, was the essence of this game that required exceptional equestrian skills and afforded opportunities for the display of all the tricks and maneuvers of horsemanship, on which the Ottoman youth prided themselves. At times, a player riding a swift horse created a diversion and, instead of returning to his place, rode off to a distance after making his throw, thus encouraging several horsemen from the other side to pursue and overtake him.