ABSTRACT

A recent and enthralling publication, Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nights (a Companion) 2 tells one, midst an informative discussion of medieval manners and mores, that "Doctors, many of whom were Christians and Jews, regularly recommended wine to their patients for all sorts of ailments". 3 This brief reminder that wine—far from disappearing from the scene after its proscription by Islam—played a role in a religiously pluralistic society is printed on a page that goes on to speak of the great Abū Nuwās (d. circa 813AD): "The ninth-century poet who was patronized by the Barmecid clan and later became the nadīm of the Caliph al-Amīn . . . the greatest of the poets who celebrated both the joys of wine and the beauty of the boys who served that wine". On the following page we read: "Often taverns (khans) were attached to Christian monasteries". It is hard here to fix Irwin's comment in a particular century, but one must take it broadly to subsume the whole of the medieval period until the end of Mamluke rule in Egypt; I would add simply that as well as Christian taverns there were also Jewish taverns (at least in early ninth century Iraq, as there had been in pre-Islamic times). I have quoted Irwin not for a pedantic quibble but rather to publicise an erudite good-read; and simply because he brings together the two subjects of this essay.