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Thursday 29 December 2005
Was alcohol first developed by Muslims? Was it always forbidden to them?
I wrote this note in response to questions on soc.humanities.classics.
Muslims used spirits medicinally. This is not to claim that all Muslims have taken this view, only that many have done and surely some do now. (Certain non-Muslim friends of mine claim to use whisky the same way.) If you use spirits as a vehicle for herbs/spices such as aniseed, gentian, mastic, etc., as in several popular Mediterranean liquors, these essences really do have digestive and other medicinal effects and are quite properly regarded as medicinal. Whether you think the benefits outweigh the possible ill-effects of the alcohol is up to you ...
Muslim chemists or alchemists certainly appear to have been the first to distil alcohol. Romans, so far as anyone knows, never achieved this. Yet there are a couple of reports in ancient sources of wine that would 'catch fire'. Wine never will, but spirits will. So did the Romans manage it after all?