SC - Alcohol and Kingdom Legislation

[Maddie Teller-Kook]

> david friedman wrote:
> > 
> > Why do you assume sugar is expensive in al-Islam? Of course it is
> expensive
> > in Frangistan, since they have to import it from the civilized world,
> but
> > we grow the stuff.
> 
> Once agin I ask your pardon, your Grace. I had assumes that sugar was
> expensive due to the refining process which takes lots of water and a
> small amount of time. How expensive was sugar in al-Islam? perhaps a
> figure relative to the price of bread would help me understand.
> 
> .Crystal of the Westermark
> 
I can't give you a value, but sugar was a widely grown and used product in
the Islamic lands.  It originates in India.  It was transplanted to the
Euphrates before the rise of Islam and it is probably there that it was
first refined.  These areas became part of al-Islam before 700 CE.

Sugar was then transplanted to Egypt, Spain, Cyprus, Sicily, and anywhere
else it would grow under Islamic rule.  Europeans first gained control of
sugar fields in Cyprus when they seized the island.

The Portuguese and the Spanish took the cane to the Cape Verde Islands, the
Canaries, the Azores, West Africa and the New World.

Protestant Northern Europe continued to buy sugar from the Islamic countries
until the early 17th Century, when some of these nations seized some of the
sugar islands in the Caribbean.

Bear
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