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NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



coction of the Abyssinian berry, to which they gave the 

 name of buun, while they called the shrub on which it 

 grew the buun-tree. The early Mohammedan authors 

 furnish us merely with a few details about the supposed 

 qualities of this liquid, and the disputes that occurred con- 

 cerning its lawfulness as an article of diet. Avicenna, Ibn 

 Jazlah of Bagdad, and some other professional writers of 

 that time, speak obscurely of buun ; hence we may pre- 

 sume that coffee, like sugar and chocolate, was then pre- 

 scribed as a medicine. Its use, however, was long pecu- 

 liar to the East ; and the city of Aden is the first on re- 

 cord that set the example of drinking it as a common re- 

 freshment, about the middle of the fifteenth century. A 

 drowsy mufti called Jemaleddin had discovered that it 

 disposed him to keep awake, as well as to a more lively 

 exercise of his spiritual duties. On his authority coffee 

 became the most fashionable beverage in the place. The 

 leaves of the cat (tea) were abandoned ; and all classes, 

 lawyers, students, loungers, and artisans, adopted the 

 infusion of the roasted bean. Another discovery of the 

 same individual rendered it still more popular. Having 

 contracted some infirmity during a voyage to Persia, on 

 returning to Yemen he applied to his favourite stimulant, 

 and in a short time found his health perfectly restored. 

 This pious doctor, to whom Europe perhaps owes one of 

 the most useful luxuries of the East, died A. D. 1470 ; and 

 such was the reputation which his experience had given 

 to the virtues of coffee, that in a short time it was intro- 

 duced by Fakeddin at Mecca and Medina, and became so 

 agreeable to the general taste, that public saloons were 

 opened, where crowds assembled to enjoy the amusements 

 of chess, singing, dancing, gambling, and other recreations 

 not very consistent with the rigour of the Koran. 



About the beginning of the 16th century it was brought 

 by certain dervises of Yemen to Cairo, where its qualities 

 recommended it to general use. But the innovation of 

 drinking it in the mosques gave rise to a bitter controversy, 

 which seemed to threaten the East with a new revolution. 

 In the year 1511, it was publicly condemned at Mecca by 

 an assembly of muftis, lawyers, and physicians, who de- 

 clared it to be contrary to the law of the Prophet, and 

 alike injurious to soul and body. The pulpits of Cairo 

 resounded with the anathemas of the more orthodox di- 

 vines ; all the magazines of this " seditious berry" were 



