SC - Source, Please

[Mordonna22@aol.com]

At 5:38 PM -0600 1/30/99, Decker, Terry D. wrote:
>> Bear writes:
>>
>> >The first references to coffee as a drink are apocryphal and, at the
>> >earliest, date from 1258 (Mocha, Yemen).
>>
>> Could you explain this? In what sense is the reference apocryphal?
>>
>> David/Cariadoc
>> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
>>
>The reference is apocryphal because it is based on legend.  According to
>legend, Shaykh Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili, a Sufi, introduced coffee drinking
>to Yemen about 1258.

And when is this legend first recorded? If the answer is "after we know
from other sources that coffee was being drunk," then it isn't much
evidence about when coffee drinking began.

Or to put it differently, what you are describing are not "the first
references to coffee as a drink," unless the legend itself was recorded
before we have other references to coffee as a drink. Rather, they are
later references that assert coffee was being drunk earlier. In precisely
the same fashion, you could have described the recent TI article as "The
first references to coffee as a drink," since it at least suggests a still
earlier date.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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