Quote Originally Posted by Gwrthefyr View Post
These interdicts were so hugely reinterpreted as to be nearly void in some areas and periods - more than one Andalusian prince realized the sheer importance of wine in their economies, groups like the Alevis and the Bektashis, the general liberalization of the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat period (much too late, I agree, but in the renaissance, we have a sultan of Rum dying of a cyrrhosis), a certain tendency for many middle and upper class (practicing) moslems to consider that it's okay so long as they're sober for prayer. There are also a few alcoholic beverages still native to Syria (IIRC, Raki); and most of the Basarji hardly live in a desert.

And Umar Khayyam would hardly have used wine for his metaphors if it had been so universally loathed as pretended.
Quite so, Gwrthefyr! But don't forget that such wineswigging wastrels tend to pay the price in the end. The Alevis have been for much of their history a reviled and persecuted people, and the Almoravids, limp from their drink and flowery poetry, were easy prey for the Almohads. When the conquerors in turn took on the vices of the conquered, the Spaniards were all too happy to kick them out in turn.

As for the cyrrhos'd sultan - I remember one of the Abbasid caliphs died of asphyxiation when his half-sister and lover sat on his face for just a little longer than the good man could hold his breath. But that, too, was a somewhat atypical incident...