Catalogue Entry: Procession of coffee sellers with a model of the coffeehouse
In 1582, an imperial ceremony was held in Istanbul by Sultan Murad III to commemorate the circumcision of his son Prince Mehmed. The festival was quite possibly the longest and exhibited the most pomp out of any the Ottomans had previously held and provided the elite and non-elite groups of the Ottoman Empire with a means to interact with each other. This interaction afforded by the ceremony took the form of the many guilds of Istanbul performing before the Sultan in a procession where masters and novices displayed their work. In addition to guild performances, mock battles, singing, and dancing all occurred, in addition to the circumcision of the prince of course, although it was performed in private. While the prince’s circumcision was certainly a big deal, the enormous undertaking of setting up for the festivities was further justified by the culmination of a financial crisis, instability in the countryside, rises in unemployment, a war with Persia, and a recent assassination of the grand vizier. Considering the historical context of the Imperial Circumcision Ceremony of 1582, it was also meant to serve as a means to distract the populace and impress foreigners. The ceremony was to serve as a facilitator to unify the public of the empire in a time of crisis and it enabled different groups to interact in a social setting. This is exemplified in the Sūrnāme-i Hümāyān.
Fig. 1
ALTERNATE VIEWS Circumcision ceremony for Akbar’s sons, painting 126 from an Akbar-nama (Book of Akbar) of Abu’l Fazl (Indian, 1551–1602)
The Sūrnāme-i Hümāyān (Imperial Festival Book) fits within a tradition of documenting important imperial events by capturing the power of the state and the connections between the court and the public in a realistic way. It, like its brethren, portrays political, economic, and cultural dynamics in Ottoman society. The 437 miniatures of the Sūrnāme-i Hümāyān focus on the colorful displays presented before Sultan Murad III and the associated merriment of the attendees. Because this book of miniatures includes the dynamics of the patrons attending the festivities in how it relates to its imperial purposes, it is the best at capturing the Imperial Circumcision Ceremony as a social space through which exchange occurred among different groups.
Fig. 2
Procession of coffee sellers with a model of the coffeehouse, Miniature in the Sūrnāme-i Hümāyān of 1582
The particular object of focus is the miniature which depicts the guild of coffee sellers parading a model coffeehouse on wheels with patrons being served inside. The Sūrnāme describes how in the performance the customers are dismayed to find their bad coins refused and they accordingly demand for the “dens of hashish” to be shut down and how the coffee sellers refuse service to the country boors. It also retells how the sellers hilariously argue the beneficial nature of coffee for studying, due to its ability to keep one awake, from drugged caricatures. The description offered by the festival book makes it clear that the display before the sultan was a mockup and commentary of life within the coffee houses of Istanbul. Having been pleased by the performance of the guild, Sultan Murad III agreed to leave the coffeehouses alone for a time. Additionally, a group among the coffee sellers appealed to the sultan by explaining that enforcers had arrested them, smashed their porcelain cups, and dumped their coffee.
Such actions performed by enforcers of the sultan become clear with an understanding of the emergence of coffeehouses and coffee culture in Istanbul. The first coffeehouse was opened in Istanbul in the mid 16th century by Syrians Ḥakm and Shams from Syria. By this time Coffee had already become a popular drink among members of different classes in al-Ḥijāz and Egypt. Beyond being simply popular, coffee-drinking had quickly become a public pastime with public coffee-serving locations being seen as intrinsically linked to the drink itself and an integral part of its nature. This is exemplified by the fact that the word kahve, meaning coffee in Turkish, is a shortening of the kahvehane, meaning coffeehouse, demonstrating that the drink and the place have always been inseparable from the Turkish perspective. The frequenting of the coffeehouse in particular became popular in Istanbul. As soon as coffee became a favorite drink of many Turks, so too did the act of drinking it in the public sphere of the coffeehouse. With coffee being fundamentally linked to the public space of the coffeehouse, coffee at its core was a social drug and acted as a sort of social lubrication. Before getting into the perception of coffeehouses by Islamic authority and further into the Turkish coffee tradition, some additional background and context regarding the origin of coffee as a social beverage is useful.
Coffee has an even longer social tradition predating the coffeehouse as a construct itself. Originating in Ethiopia, the bean itself had long been used by tribes both eaten itself and in a powdered form on bread. According to legend the actual creation of coffee as a beverage was bestowed upon Solomon by the angel Gabriel to heal the sick. Another legend attributes its creation to the Sufi sheikh, Al-Dhabbani who, after being exiled managed to sustain himself in the wilderness using only a drink boiled from the coffee bean and used it to heal his friends of scabies. Yet another legend tells of the discovery of coffee being attributed to Kaldi's goats who ate the cherries and began to dance. After seeing the effect the berries had, humans used them to create a drink. Outside of the legends surrounding the beverage, coffee’s first use as a drink comes from Yemen among the mystical Sadhili Sufi order of Islam. The Sufis used coffee in their communal worship ceremonies called dhikrs that sought to induce a trance to bring one closer to Allah. Coffee lended itself nicely to these ceremonies due to its nature as a stimulant and it helped reduce the tiring effects from the dancing that occurred. The drink also became an expression of brotherhood through the sharing of a cup and participation in religious chant. The unifying effects and social nature of the drink was further exhibited in the sharing of a communal bowl between men and women, unifying them as a group with the goal of transcending the material world. Since its inception, coffee has been a social beverage that brought people together.
Fig. 3
Coffeehouse Scene
Due to the social nature of coffee and its mental effects, it also lended itself to non-Sufi Muslim use and then quickly found itself in secular use. By the mid-fifteenth century, coffee was being consumed in Mecca and Medina, however coffee houses would not have emerged for another fifty or so years. By the early 1500s, coffeehouses had sprung up across Cairo and Damascus, and Istanbul was aware of the substance with some individuals partaking in it around the mid 1400s. Considering that coffee drinking had expanded to Mecca and Medina, it is therefore plausible that Ottomans came into contact with it when on pilgrimage, bringing information about the drink back home. It is also plausible that the Ottomans may have discovered coffee when they defeated the Mamluk empire in 1517. In 1555 the first coffeehouse was opened in Istanbul, as stated before, in the Tahtakal district, and by 1600, approximately 600 coffeeshops had been opened in the city. In understanding the historical context of the Ottoman coffeehouse and the origin of coffee, a better understanding of the Ottoman coffeehouse can be obtained.
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The Ottoman coffeehouse became the preferred meeting point for individuals and a crossroads for locals, travelers, officials, employers, employees, the clergy, non-Muslims, hobos, influencers, civil servants, kadis, and professors. This intersectionality between classes and walks of life was solely reserved for men, however women did find locations for sociability and exchange in private or in bathhouses. Despite the fact that coffeehouses were exclusive to men, no other setting in Istanbul provided the opportunity for different socio-economic classes, religions, and backgrounds to partake in the same conversations over the same drink. It was a space in which the dregs and elites of Ottoman society could come together and put aside hostility and prejudice. Like its patrons, the coffeehouse offered a mix of cerebral and corporeal entertainment, and it served as the main Muslim sphere in Ottoman society. As beloved as the coffeehouses of Istanbul were by its citizens, they still came under opposition.
Another facet of the Ottoman coffeehouse was their nature as not only in their association to the religious and intellectual spheres, but also with the presence of, and resulting association to, unseemly behaviors that fell outside of what was considered socially acceptable in Istanbul. Coffeehouses often employed attractive boys as waiters and busboys, but it was suspected that their employment had the added intention of attracting customers into the establishment. Coffeehouses also became associated gambling, hard drug use, and general homosexual activities, which did occur at some coffeehouses but were not found at every one. The presence of the coffeehouse boys encapsulated the nature of the coffeehouse as a special space in which the normal rules of social space were absent and because of the lack of class divisions. This allowed for the multilayered ambiences, identities, and desires of personal and romantic relationships within the gender-heterotopia to flourish. For this reason, the coffeehouse came under fire from religious and political authorities. Additionally, coffeehouses were criticized by religious authorities for their disruptive nature as they felt the coffeehouse served no purpose in the necessities of life. They were seen as potentially detracting from the social fabric of the Muslim way of life. Some ulemas even considered them to be worse than taverns. Others also criticized the beverage itself and debated whether it was banned by the Quran. This was due to the fact that it was brewed from a berry, and so some argued that it was a sort of wine and therefore prohibited before Allah. This argument, and the concern from medical officials that coffee caused depression due to its cold and dry humors, however such sentiments remained in the minority. Coffeehouses were still shut down and/or made illegal for these reasons however. Because coffeehouses were at the center of secularized public space and encouraged the formation, dissemination, and modification of public opinion, they were also disliked by political authority. The sorts of conversations occurring in this social space could easily subvert the authority of the government. Coffeehouses went through cycles of banning and permission throughout the Middle East. In the Ottoman Empire, coffee was banned on four separate occasions, but in the end all were reversed.
The power of coffee and the coffeehouse as a social space and beverage persisted in spite of bans. As an institution the coffeehouse in 16th century Istanbul was a place of exchange and social interaction between individuals that existed across a spectrum of identities. Coffee culture both fit within and outside of the norms, being a facilitator of both accepted and controversial behaviors, fitting within religious and political traditions while also subverting them, and existed within a space that encapsulated and existed outside of the public and private spheres. All of this becomes apparent when looking at the procession of coffee sellers miniature. Not only does it embody the added social dimension of the public festival, but it also encapsulates the complex, dynamic social space that was the Ottoman coffeehouse and its juxtaposing dimensions.