Action Taken To Ban Coffee

The first known action to ban coffee came from conservative clerics, sometime around 1511, when they disapproved of the stimulating drink. But that ban was overturned by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I in 1524. There was also a coffee ban in coffee houses in Egypt, in 1532.

For the rest of the world, coffee was long considered an Islamic drink, with a strong connection to Turkey.

There was a suspicion about coffee houses and were probably forbidden until Sultan Selim I overturned the first ban. But the drink was banned again in Turkey in the 17th century. This time, for political causes, because coffee houses were places where people gathered to criticize the government of Sultan Murad IV.

He even put the ban in place, with the excuse that the Muslims were forbidden to consume intoxicating substances. The banning of the consumption of coffee led to thousands of executions of people caught drinking coffee. Then Murad died at the age of 28, as an alcoholic. So much for the ban on intoxicants.

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