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Alcohol and its Consumption in Medieval Cairo. The Story of a Habit

(Katedra Arabistyki i Islamistyki, Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2004) Lewicka, Paulina B.; Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw

Contrary to what the Islamic prohibition of intoxicants might imply, the alcoholic beverages in medieval Cairo were not universally scorned. The attitude towards drinking depended on the time in history and the social setting but, generally, neither the local population, nor the members of the foreign ruling elites, nor the multinational soldiery garrisoned within the city area, were avowed abstainers. Generally, different social groups drank different drinks. Particular preferences of the Mamluks notwithstanding, the city population enjoyed, above all, wine and beer, two basic kinds of alcohol drunk in the Mediterranean-Near Eastern world since remote antiquity. And, as in antiquity, but also as in Europe of the Middle Ages, the choice between them was a matter of social standing: grain beer, whose production was easier and cheaper, was generally the drink of the common people, while wine, more expensive due to its tricky fermentation and the demands of viticulture, was the beverage of the rich.

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The Nile River in Muslim Geographical Sources

(Katedra Arabistyki i Islamistyki, Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2004) Nazmi, Ahmad; Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw

The Arab Egyptians usually call this river Baḥr an-Nīl (The Sea of Nile). Travelers from other Islamic regions also adopted this name apparently because of its great length and width. Although the name An-Nīl does not explicitly appear in the Qur’ān, it appears as a metaphor and no doubt as a poetical allusion, in the word Yamm (Sea) in the story of Moses and the Egyptian Pharaoh. According to the anonymous author of Kitāb al-istibṣār, the Qur’ān calls it Yamm like in Hebrew while the Arabs call it Baḥr (Sea).

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Twelve Thousand Cooks and a Muḥtasib. Some Remarks od Food Business in Medieval Cairo

(Katedra Arabistyki i Islamistyki, Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2002) Lewicka, Paulina B.; Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw

The general aim of this article is to shed some light on the functioning of the industry that was to satisfy the medieval Cairenes’ alimentative needs. As most of the Western travelers who visited Cairo between XIII and XVI centuries observed, the city dwellers generally did not cook at home—they would rather use services offered by cooks in the city streets and bazaars. Indeed, since the majority of the city inhabitants did not have kitchens at their apartments, the easiest way for them—if not the only one—to get a warm meal was to buy ready-made food. Because of the constant and common demand, the offer of public kitchens was fairly rich and assorted enough to satisfy various tastes and meet various financial capabilities of the customers. The quantity of places where ready-made food was being sold night and day was shocking to foreign visitors: the number of street cooks in the city was said to reach ten, twelve, and even twenty thousand.

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