SC - Islamic alchohol?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

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)