Down to the time of the Saracen conquest of Persia in the first century of the Hegira (A.D. 621), we have no reason to believe that any serious attempt was made to suppress drunkenness, but by the Mohammedans the use of intoxicating drink was at least nominally forbidden. The interdiction is found in the fifth chapter of the Koran, and runs as follows:—“O true believers, surely wine, and lots, and images, and divining arrows, are an abomination of the work of Satan; therefore avoid them that ye may prosper. Satan seeketh to sow dissension and hatred amongst you by means of wine and lots, and to divert you from remembering God and from prayer; will ye not therefore abstain from them?”[89] But the same sacred volume of the Mohammedans also contains at least one if not more phrases which would seem to justify as legitimate the use of intoxicating drinks in moderation. In the sixteenth chapter, amongst God’s gifts we find, “And of the fruits of palm trees and of grapes ye obtain an inebriating liquor, and also good nourishment.”[90] Notwithstanding the argumentative aspect of the question, however, Mussulmans themselves regard wine and other intoxicating liquors as unlawful, and a very large proportion of the faith, wherever they are found, really abstain from their use. That the abstinence is, however, far from universal, we find not only in considering the habits of those who reside in Persia, but also in Turks, Arabians, and Egyptians.[91] That drunkenness was not suppressed in Persia is evident from the various stories narrated to and by travellers, the debauchery of successive rulers, and the known consumption of large quantities of wine there in modern times. Morewood describes with great minuteness the Persian mode of making wine from the grape, and a kind of brandy which has long been distilled from the lees and weaker kinds of wine. Several descriptions of wine are named by him, of which Shiraz is the most highly esteemed; and quoting Tavernier, a traveller in Persia, he says that in his time 4125 tuns of that wine alone were made annually.[92] Later writers confirm these statements, and Klemm, one of the ablest German sociologists, says that in Tavernier’s time a drink called, “bengueh,” prepared from herbs and fortified with hempseeds, was largely drunk. This liquor is evidently the “banga” of the Zoroastrians; and Klemm states that in the royal library at Dresden there is a valuable illuminated Persian MS. relating to its preparation and use. He also says that in the present day, in some houses in Persia, a kind of brandy called “kokemaar” is given to guests, and that it is prepared from the kernels of fruits, and is intoxicating in the highest degree.[93]