Al-Qahwa - Coffee

Coffee was discovered by the Muslims sometimes around the 10th century. It was first used and cultivated in Yemen. Instead of eating the beans, the Yemenis boiled them creating the famous drink of “Al-Qahwa”. There is also consensus that the first users of coffee were the Sufis who used it as a stimulus to stay awake during late night Thikr (remembrance of God). Coffee spread to the rest of Muslims of Yemen and eventually to all the Muslim world through travellers, pilgrims and traders... (1001 Inventions Book, Page 12-13)

· 1.6 billions cups of coffee are drunk worldwide everyday… (http://www.muslimheritage.com/ )

· It was a Turk named Pasqua Rosee, a merchant in 1650 CE who first brought the coffee into UK (in Europe 1945) (http://www.muslimheritage.com/ )

· Coffee houses was an place of wisdom which scholars gathered to discuss and study ‘ilim’ (theology as well as science)

· Also today’s popular Coffee house trend like (from Lloyds Coffee House to) Starbucks, Caffe Nero etc. comes from the assimilation of this enlightenment

· The English word "coffee" first came into use in the early to mid 1600s, but early forms date back to the last decade of the 1500s. It comes from the Italian caffè and the French, Portuguese and Spanish café. These, in turn, were borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahveh, borrowed from the Arabic qahhwa. (http://en.wikipedia.org/)

· The origin of the Arabic qahwa (قهوة), is uncertain. It is either derived from the name of the Kaffa region in southern Ethiopia, where coffee was cultivated, or by a truncation of qahwat al-būnn, meaning "wine of the bean" in Arabic. (http://en.wikipedia.org/)


Further reading:
http://www.muslimheritage.com/features/default.cfm?ArticleID=378