Ottoman Abstinence

Mavi Boncuk| Download PDF


"One of the most striking of these is abstinence from wine and all strong liquors. They carry their notions on this subject so far as to hold it unlawful not merely to taste wine, but to make it, to buy or to sell it, or even to maintain themselves with the moneys arising from the sale of that liquor. There are, of course, among them some freethinkers and free livers who indulge in rum, but, as far as our observation has extended, the number is quite limited. The most scrupulous, indeed, refrain not only from the use of wine, but also from coffee and tobacco. It is perhaps in reference to this that the sultan, as the head of the church, is said never to use tobacco. If Mohammed, as is commonly believed, copied his restrictions from the Jews, he seems to have made an improvement upon the Levitical law, which merely forbids the use of wine and strong drinks to the priests when they are about to enter the tabernacle of the congregation. So general and so strong is the dislike to the use of spirituous liquors among the Turks, that we know of several Europeans in their service who carefully abstain from drinking when they are about to transact business with the officers of government, lest their breath should reveal the fact. If our praiseworthy associations for promoting temperance should be in want of a patron saint, we know of none who comes furnished with stronger recommendations than Mohammed."


|“Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832″, By James Ellsworth De Kay [1](Published 1833, J. & J. Harper).


[1] James Ellsworth De Kay (October 12, 1792 – November 21, 1851) was an American zoologist. 


James De Kay was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1792. When he was two years old, his family moved to New York; both his parents died while he was still quite young. He attended Yale from 1807 to 1812, but did not complete a degree. Later, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, receiving his M.D. in 1819. After his return to the United States, he married Janet Eckford, a daughter of Henry Eckford, a ship builder. He then traveled with his father-in-law to Turkey as a ship's physician, and published a book, Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832, about these travels. Although well received as an entertaining travelogue, his book has been criticized as being very anti-Hellenic as well as sometimes naive about Turkish customs[*].


[*] Ze'evi, Dror. “Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900”. University of California Press, 2006.