SC - Re: OMIGOD- HAPPY MEALS AT CROWN TOURNEY
micaylah
dy018 at freenet.carleton.ca
Mon Feb 28 12:19:00 PST 2000
Thorbjorn wrote:
>I don't know about period Islamic brews, but today, it is still forbidden
>that any alcohol cross the lips of Muslims.
Rules are rules and actual behaviors and practices are often
something else. We had a discussion along these lines recently on
this list (in the "Spanish Beer" thread, IIRC) and apparently there
are several ways to interpret the injunction in the Qur'an - from the
strictest (no alcohol of any sort), to drinking every alcohol except
wine, to drinking even wine but pouring out the first few drops. It
depends in part on what country one lives in and what sect of Islam
one follows.
Rumi the Sufi writes frequently of getting drunk, and while this is
interpreted as being purely metaphorical ("getting high on god"), it
suggests that drinking alcohol was not unknown to him either through
personal experience or observation.
Certainly wine and other spirits were drunk in al-Andalus "in
period", at least by the ruling class or tribe, which was often
decried by stricter practitioners in the Maghrib. (mentioned in "A
History of the Maghrib")
Another example of Qur'anic rule vs. actual practice is an injunction
against art depicting living beings in art. There are paintings from
just about every Muslim culture throughout the existence of Islam
depicting animals and humans, including Mohammed (although his face
is usually veiled). In iconoclastic periods, manuscripts could be
treated any of several ways, from outright destruction, to effacing
faces, to drawing a line in ink across the throats of the humans to
"kill" them by slitting their throats, so to speak.
Jeff Gedney" <JGedney at dictaphone.com> wrote:
> > I have been reading "the Works and Voyages of John Davis, Navigator".
>> Last night I have found an interesting reference.
> > In the 1580's John Davis was navigator for a Flemish boat making
>a spice run to
> > the East Indies, and in one of the Malay Kingdoms (Achien)
I believed this would be what is currently called Aceh (pronounced
Ah-chey) on the northern tip of Sumatra, a short boat ride to
Malaysia. They're pretty strict there now, but 400 years ago could
well have behaved differently.
I lived in Indonesia on the island of Java from 1979 to 1980, where
over 90 per cent of the population is nominally Muslim and they drank
beer (and it wasn't rice beer). Granted, this isn't period, but is
illustrative of actual practices of some Muslims...
I did visit the province of North Sumatra (Sumatera Utara, not Aceh)
where there are some non-Muslims (my ex-husband's family, for
example, Bataks on the island of Samosir in Lake Toba). To celebrate
i was served a mixture of beer and Chinese medicinal wine (ugh, not a
recommended mixture).
As far as i know, the Indonesians learned to make beer from the Dutch
who colonized the region for about 300-350 years.
On the island of Bali they still drink an indigenous alcoholic
beverage made from fermented palm sap which is also an indigenous
source of sugar. It is clear, colorless, pretty harsh, and packs a
punch, called "tuak". Most Balinese are not Muslim, so no local
injunction. This or something like it is likely the beverage
mentioned in Davis's work as i know that historically it was known
throughout the archipelago. I don't know exactly how it is made,
although perhaps some of my anthropology books make mention. If you
like, i can pursue it...
Wet rice agriculture has been known there for a *very* long time, at
least 2,000 years (that's growing in "paddies", although this is a
misnomer, as "padi" is raw unhusked rice, the terraced wet rice
fields are "sawah"), so rice was certainly available.
They do use fermentation and yeast ("ragi)) to process several
starchy white tubers which are eaten as a sweet snacks. The
fermentation process seems to make them sweeter and appears to break
down the fibers making the tubers softer (mushy) and less fibrous.
As fruits are picked ripe and refrigerators are rare, one needs to
eat them quickly. I personally experienced fresh pineapple which had
fermented naturally in the heat. So i suppose some sort of fermented
fruit beverage is also a possibility, although i have no
documentation.
Ananita al-shazhiyya
(Mutiarawati)
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