Rudolph Matthee: Alcohol in the Islamic Middle East

This lecture is based on Professor Matthee’s book, Angels Tapping at the Wine-shop’s Door*: A History of Alcohol in the Islamic Middle East.  (*from Hafez).

The book debunks the myth that, since alcohol is forbidden in Islam, “good” Muslims do not drink. It argues that, rather than extraneous to Islam, alcohol is integral to the faith, present through its very presumed absence. It presents traditional Islam, heir to a variegated Byzantine-Christian and Persian-Zoroastrian vinous tradition, not as the pettifogging creed that it appears to be today, but as a capacious faith that accommodated alcohol consumption as the privilege of youth and the prerogative of royalty, enabling the sin of drinking to be expiated through repentance, and conniving at the drinking of commoners so long as it did not disturb the social order.

Rudi Matthee is President of the Persian Heritage Foundation and Chair of History at the University of Delaware. He is a very entertaining speaker and we are lucky to have him while he is on a short visit to London.

This event is for members only.