Good evening steemians
In the last ten nights of Ramadhan, a tradition inherent in the memory is that there is a coffee brew in a large pitcher. Plastic cups were stacked. Snacks are placed on a plate lined up. The teenagers got together and laughed after playing firecrackers. Old, young, male, female, gathered in mosque, and i'tikaf. There's an hour or two. Anything goes until dawn. Of course, in the midst of chanting that dawn, coffee-and often clove cigarettes-is always there.
Dozens of years later, I just read that the tradition of running or staying up while worshiping accompanied by coffee, has been done since centuries ago. Interesting article entitled "Coffee - The Wine of Islam" tells that coffee has a close relationship with Islamic civilization.
Indeed, coffee was first present in Abyssinia, now Ethiopia-complete with legend Kaldi the goat herd who was surprised to find her pet so excited after eating coffee beans. However, it was the first Yemeni people to cultivate coffee.
At that time, in the 13th century, the Shadhiliyya Sufi group knew coffee from Ethiopian shepherds. The magic beverage turns out to come from a bun - a term that is then used to describe the plants and fruit of coffee.
When the Sufi group born in Yemen returned to their homeland, they brought with them the seeds of bun. In Yemen, this night blackened drink is known as qahwa. The term was originally used for wine. Because of that, coffee is dubbed as "The Wine of Islam". Because at that time qahwadipercaya can make people strong literate, he was used as a friend to remembrance and worship until dawn. The word qahwa also then absorbed into coffee, cafe, and coffee.
The coffee that was originally drunk by the Sufis, then found its popularity. In Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (2010), Mark Pendergrast explains that coffee is a daily drink. Rich people in Yemen and beyond, have a special room for coffee. While the money is mediocre, drinking coffee in kaveh kanes, aka coffee house. In the 15th century, Muslim pilgrims had spread coffee to Persia, Egypt, Turkey, also North Africa. Coffee is a valuable item.
When coffee became a daily drink, also appear many coffee houses. As there is an unwritten law, that if there are people gathered while drinking, there must be a result. Whether it's an idea for a book, an inspiration to write a poem, to joking with a ruler. The latter then prompted the Governor of Mecca to forbid the existence of a coffee house.
Once upon a time in 1511, coffee houses were thought to bring new problems. People are thought to spend too much time knocking coffee, rather than, say, work or worship. Ralp Hattox who wrote about the history of a coffee house in Arabia, quoted in Uncommon Grounds, writes that the coffee house even became a den of criminal deeds.
But the peak, when the ruler of Mecca at that time, Khair-Beg, knew there was a joke about him. Where else would it have been if not from men gossiping while having coffee at kaveh kanes. So, in 1511, Khair-Beg gave a fatwa: coffee just like wine. Must be forbidden! At the same time, all the coffee houses in Mecca were forced to close.
But whatever is forbidden, will definitely find its own way. Coffee remains a daily drink that makes people addicted. Because so many people are addicted to drinking coffee, Sultan Sulaiman, the Turkish ruler, imposed a tax for coffee in 1554. The goal is clear: reduce coffee consumption.
In the late 17th century, Cairo merchants brought coffee from Jeddah and Hudayda in western Yemen. According to Michel Tuscherer's report on "Coffee in the Red Sea Area from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century", their coffee trade amounts to 4,500 tons per year.
Traders from the Netherlands, in 1699 brought coffee from Malabar, Southwest India, to Java.
Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds, mentions that the Dutch later re-planted coffee in Sumatra, Sulawesi, Timor, also Bali. In the 1700s, Java and Mocha (a port city in Yemen), became the best coffee suppliers. There is even a term cup of Java to call coffee.
Coffee is also a sacred plant in some places. Gayo coffee farmers, for example, have Siti Kahwa as the personification of a coffee plant. When the coffee planting season came, the peasants swept through the fields. The elderly then recites a mantra that always pops up when it will begin to grow coffee.
Bismillah / Siti Kahwa / kunikahen ko orom kuyu / wih kin walimu / tanoh kin saksimu / Lo kin witness your kalammu.
(Bismillah / Siti Kahwa / kunikahkan dikau with wind / water your guardian / your witness land / sun witness kalammu.)
Hundreds of years since coffee was first grown in the archipelago, coffee is still unshakable as a popular drink. In Indonesia, coffee is almost always there in every event, especially those who need to stay up. Starting from the nature of communal such as patrolling or consecrated work, to a religious nature such as i'tikaf.
