coffee - kaffee - kahva

[abdullah]

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Coffee - Kaffee, Herkunft - History

Most modern coffee-drinkers are probably unaware of coffee's heritage
in the Sufi orders of Southern Arabia. Members of the Shadhiliyya
order are said to have spread coffee-drinking throughout the Islamic
world sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries CE.
A Shadhiliyya shaikh was introduced to coffee-drinking in Ethiopia,
where the native highland bush, its fruit and the beverage made from
it were known as bun.
It is possible, though uncertain, that this Sufi was Abu'l Hasan 'Ali
ibn Umar, who resided for a time at the court of Sadaddin II, a sultan
of Southern Ethiopia. 'Ali ibn Umar subsequently returned to the Yemen
with the knowledge that the berries were not only edible, but promoted
wakefulness. To this day the shaikh is regarded as the patron saint of
coffee-growers, coffee-house proprietors and coffee-drinkers, and in
Algeria coffee is sometimes called shadhiliyye in his honor.
Sufis in Yemen drank al-qahwa for the same reason we do today, to stay
awake. It helped them to concentrate during late night Dhikr (prayers
in remembrance of Allah). Coffee was spread to the rest of the Muslim
world by travelers, pilgrims, and traders, reaching Mecca and Turkey
in the late 15th century and Cairo in the 16th Century.
www.superluminal.com/cookbook/essay_coffee.html