EARLY HISTORY. 



From Syria the use of the "benign potation," as it was 

 then termed, reached Cairo about 1510, being received 

 with equal avidity in that city, so much so that in that 

 year its indiscriminate use was prohibited on religious 

 grounds, also by Khaine Beg, the then governor of the 

 city. In his proclamation forbidding the use of coffee, 

 it was assailed by him as " having an inebriating effect, 

 and of producing inclinations condemned by the Koran." 

 This edict was, however, rescinded by his successor, 

 Causin, soon after his assuming the governorship. But 

 another effort was made to suppress its use in 1523 by 

 the chief priest, Abdallah Ibrahim, who denounced its 

 use in a sermon delivered in the mosque of Haffanaine, 

 a violent commotion being produced among the populace, 

 the opposing factions coming to blows over its use. The 

 governor, Sheikh Obelek, a man wise in his generation * 

 and time, then assembled the mollahs, doctors and others 

 of the opponents of coffee-drinking at his residence, and 

 after listening patiently to their tedious harangues against 

 its use, treated them all to a cup of coffee each, first 

 setting the example by drinking one himself. Then dis- 

 missing them, courteously withdrew from their presence 

 without uttering a single w r ord. By this prudent conduct 

 the public peace was soon restored, and coffee was 

 ever afterward allowed to be used in Cairo. 



Coffee continued its progress without further molesta- 

 tion through Egypt, the beverage being received in 

 Damascus in 1 5 30, and in Aleppo a few years later, with- 

 out opposition, becoming known to the inhabitants of 

 Constantinople for the first time in 1554, in which year 

 two persons, named Schems and Heken, the former 

 coming from Damascus, and the latter from Aleppo, 

 opened the first coffee-houses in that city, where it 

 soon became the favorite drink with all classes, "the 



