Middle East (wine)

The production and consumption of wine has been widespread in the Middle East and has been tolerated to varying extents by different religious groups. Muhammad forbade wine (khamr) and even pressed grape juice for Muslims. Wine was traded and used among the Jews, at least in Egypt, including for sacramental purposes, and had to be prepared by Jews according to stated practices. Many Christian monasteries in the region made and sold wine to raise revenue. Finally, the Zoroastrian communities of Persia continued to make and drink wine after the Islamic conquest.

Though written sources regarding alcoholic drinks before the early 7th century are scarce, literature concerning the early Muslims reveals a great deal of information about alcohol at the time of Muhammad. The Hadith collected by al-Bukhari, records a number of fermented drinks available in the Arabian Peninsula at that time. According to ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, “wine is prepared from five things: raisins, dates, wheat, barley, or honey,” while Anas ibn Malik mentions wines made from at least four different kinds of dates. In addition to declaring wine to be haram, Muhammad himself considered other cooked or fermented drinks such as tilā’ and naqir as inebriating and thus forbade the pressing of grapes and the drinking of pressed grape juice.

As the early Muslim armies conquered more territory, though, increasing populations of non-Muslims were brought under Muslim rule, necessitating the development of a body of law regulating the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslim dhimmis. A document used for guiding Muslim pacts with dhimmi communities known as the Shuruṭ ‘Umar forbids dhimmis from selling forbidden products – pork, wine, carrion – to Muslims.

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