Drink Coffee? Off With Your Head!

slimvictor

slimvictor

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"Darkness cannot be dissipated with more darkness.
Most folks who resolved to cut down on coffee this year are driven by the simple desire for self-improvement.

But for coffee drinkers in 17th-century Turkey, there was a much more concrete motivating force: a big guy with a sword.

Sultan Murad IV, a ruler of the Ottoman Empire, would not have been a fan of Starbucks. Under his rule, the consumption of coffee was a capital offense.

The sultan was so intent on eradicating coffee that he would disguise himself as a commoner and stalk the streets of Istanbul with a hundred-pound broadsword. Unfortunate coffee drinkers were decapitated as they sipped.

Murad IV's successor was more lenient. The punishment for a first offense was a light cudgeling. Caught with coffee a second time, the perpetrator was sewn into a leather bag and tossed in the river.

But people still drank coffee. Even with the sultan at the front door with a sword and the executioner at the back door with a sewing kit, they still wanted their daily cup of joe. And that's the history of coffee in a bean skin: Old habits die hard.

cont at
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/10/144988133/drink-coffee-off-with-your-head?sc=tw
 
Good article, shows how coffee has been considered to be a drug, despite what more recent propaganda wants you to believe.
E.g.
In Murad's Istanbul, religious leaders preached on street corners that coffee would inspire indecent behavior. As the bean moved west into Europe, physicians rallied against it, claiming that coffee would "dry up the cerebrospinal fluid" and cause paralysis.

Perhaps the bawdiest argument against coffee was "The Womens [sic] Petition Against Coffee," published in England in 1674. Brimming with innuendos that would make Shakespeare blush, the six-page manifesto blamed coffee for every type of impotence.
Click to expand...

There is more good readin' there, too, so click on the link and read the whole thing!
 
Yeah I think the article is a bit off, even the biggest swords wouldn't have been more than 4 - 5kg, and they're saying he used one over 20.

Interesting article though.
 
Yeah, it wasn't 100 pounds, that would be ridiculous. I got curious and looked it up, and it seems that 6-8lb is a very heavy sword, and 10lb is unheard of for a fighting sword.
 
Excellent. Let's all focus on the minute detail rather than the broad picture.

Bravo, media. Bravo. (So, fuck our economy, who doesn't support abortion? I can't vote for them...)
 
^ It calls into question the accuracy of the rest of the story if the author portrays one clearly false rumor as fact.
 
This guy punished alcohol, tobacco, and coffee consumption with execution. On his wikipedia page it says he was a habitual drinker despite his ruthless support of alcohol prohibition.

A political figure that's hypocritical on drug use, I guess some things never change.
 
^Yeah but how could you even lift it by the handle is what I am saying. Broadswords have a very small handle. I've handled one and if the blade was a 100 pounds no way could you pick it up by the handle. Just not possible. And even if you could. To use it with enough skill to chop someones head off with one stroke?
 
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