There is a fine but important distinction to be made [regarding Islam and alcohol*]. Drinking is forgivable. A Muslim, in most sects, could drink and then repent. But believing that drinking is not a sin, is a sin. So a long procession of sultans cracked down and forgot, or banned and boozed. Pretty much every shah of Persia announced a complete ban on alcohol at some point. But people would just forget about it. There was always a reason. Safi I was crowned in 1629 and immediately banned alcohol, but then he got a cold. It was a very bad cold, and his doctor told him that as it was such a particularly bad cold, he should drink to cure it. Medicinal drinking couldn’t possibly be a sin. It was for his health. He died of drink in 1642.
His successor, Shah Abbas II, was crowned and immediately banned alcohol. But he was only nine years old at the time. Aged sixteen he won a battle and that seemed like something of a special occasion, so he had a drink and the special occasion continued until 1666.
Sultan Husayn made the most serious stab at the business. He was crowned in 1694 and immediately banned alcohol. Six thousand bottles of wine were taken from the royal cellars and publicly emptied in the central square of Isfahan. Sultan was a shah who really, truly meant it. But then his great-aunt told him that she really rather liked alcohol. What’s a chap to do? No reasonable fellow can ban something that his great-aunt enjoys. It’s coldhearted. So the ban was lifted and soon he and the old girl were merrily drinking away.
Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) had taken a more hands-on approach to the problem of alcohol. He would wander the nighttime streets of Istanbul disguised as a commoner and, with his own hands, kill any Muslim he found drinking. Murad IV was himself a hopeless alcoholic, and any moderately qualified psychoanalyst would Draw Conclusions.
Source:
Forsyth, Mark. “Drinking in the Middle East.” A Short History of Drunkenness. Three Rivers Press, 2017. 114-15. Print.
Further Reading:
Sultan Husayn (also known as Soltan Hosayn and Soltan Hosein)
These anecdotes are pretty funny!