AQ Khan: The Scientist Who Escaped Assassins, Built a Nuclear Bomb, and “Ate Grass”

Just two years after the December 1971 war between Pakistan and India, on May 18, 1974, India detonated a nuclear device, confirming it possessed the A-bomb.

Pakistan had already lost a significant part of its land in that war. East Pakistan, which had already been undergoing a civil war, had emerged as the independent state of Bangladesh with help from India. With the war lost, and the country now divided, the timing of the Indian nuclear test could not have been worse.

Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was under intense pressure to counter what was perceived as a threat to the very sovereignty of Pakistan. Just a few years back, in 1965, in an interview, Bhutto had said that if India built a nuclear bomb, “we will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”

Sensing what was being cooked next door, he had already directed work on Pakistan’s nuclear program to be initiated and research had already begun in 1972. But it was progressing very slowly, and the prime minister’s restlessness was growing with each passing day. Now, India’s test had come to confirm his worst fears.

Like serendipity, a letter from a hardly known young scientist working in Amsterdam, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, arrived, in which he offered his services to provide guidance for Pakistan’s nuclear program – Mossad officials would later regret having failed to assassinate him in time.

Dr. Khan, was immediately invited for a meeting by PM Bhutto. Upon his arrival in December 1974, he was surprised to learn that Pakistan’s nuclear program had already set about. What he did not like, however, was that the scientists were relying on the plutonium route. He sharply criticized this approach and explained the viability of the uranium enrichment route to Bhutto. Upon Bhutto’s request, he spelled out the action plan for highly enriched uranium to the scientists of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

One year after the first meeting, when Khan came to his home country for his annual vacation, and happened to visit the site, he was dismayed with the pace of progress. The scientists already working in the PAEC were no lightweights and perhaps had little reason to be receptive towards the views of someone they saw – more or less – as a holidaymaker, coming from Amsterdam for vacation and telling them what to do. The distance bomb-learning program was not working.

But Khan’s frustration over the inefficiency of the program resulted in a reaction he did not expect: Bhutto invited Khan to leave his job, settle in Pakistan, and lead the program. Khan, who was well settled in his new home abroad, which he liked very much, and who also had a wife from the Netherlands, initially expressed hesitance.

Yet, this represented an opportunity to make his country a nuclear power. Just a year back, following the Indian nuclear tests, he was frantically trying to reach the prime minister, writing him letters, one after another. In his estimation, armed with an atomic bomb, India’s next target, after East Pakistan, would have been the Punjab and Kashmir.

Not only did Khan’s word reach Bhutto, but he was offered to lead an independent arm of the program and protect his country. With his wife reassuring him of her full support, which was his concern, he saw no reason to turn down the offer.

Dr. Khan’s expertise and Pakistan’s nuclear program

While Pakistan’s civilian nuclear program had already begun in the 1950s, and a nuclear power plant in Karachi had started functioning in 1972, Pakistan’s military nuclear program got a strong impetus only upon Khan’s arrival.

The program headed by the PAEC continued; however, Khan had differences with the scientists there as he was only inclined to take the uranium enrichment route, which was his area of expertise. In 1976, he was given the charge of a new setup, the Engineering Research Laboratories, which he developed from scratch. The company was later renamed by the succeeding president, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, as “Abdul Qadeer Khan Research Laboratories (KRL)” in recognition of his services.

Khan had studied metallurgy in Germany, materials engineering in the Netherlands, and obtained a doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Just after his doctorate, he had joined the company Verenigde Machinefabrieken Stork-Werkspoor (VMF) in the Netherlands, which had a big portfolio of heavy machinery, including nuclear plants-related equipment.

Khan got posted by VMF as a consultant at Urenco, a uranium enrichment company, which used to provide enriched uranium to power plants in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the United States. According to Khan, the company was facing problems with designing gas centrifuges, and being an expert in materials, he was one of the engineers posted to this top secret facility.

Thus, Khan brought with him his experience and expertise in designing gas centrifuge technologies for uranium enrichment, which represented perhaps the most critical part in developing weapons-grade nuclear technology. He started working at a rapid pace to build the facility, and to develop and acquire materials and technologies, as fast as possible, without being detected.

Khan was a scientist, a metallurgist, and a nuclear-program architect, but at the same time, he was at the center of a secret network, having to strike deals to procure whatever was required from wherever at minimum cost and in the shortest time. Sometimes, this might have meant defense cooperation with other countries. In any case, the work progressed swiftly, and by the 1980s, Pakistan had achieved the capability for nuclear explosion.

Interestingly, the PAEC and the KRL, both complemented each other, but in many ways emerged as competitors too. Both claimed to have reached the potential to make a bomb in the 1980s using their own routes.

When India mobilized its forces in 1987 and started some of the biggest war exercises since WWII, Pakistani General Zia-ul-Haq landed in India to “watch a test match.” At the airport, he briefly met Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and warned him with a chilling equanimity, “Mr Rajiv, you want to attack Pakistan, do it. But keep in mind that this world will forget Hulagu Khan and Genghis Khan and will remember only Zia-ul-Haq and Rajiv Gandhi, because this will not be a conventional war but a nuclear war…”

With that threat, the war was averted. And Israel’s plans to strike KRL plants with India’s help, had fallen flat too.

The nuclear tests and Khan’s legacy

It was not until 1998 that Pakistan came to the fore with the bomb. When India performed its tests on May 11 and 13, 1998, Pakistan decided to go ahead with its own merely 17 days later. Pakistan conducted its nuclear explosions in an unpopulated, granite mountain range in Balochistan Province, under the name “Chaghi-I” on May 28, 1998 and “Chaghi-II” on May 30, 1998.

Before this, some had doubted Pakistan’s nuclear capability altogether. But the speed of Pakistani reaction came as a surprise even to those who believed it was in possession of an atomic bomb. Independent sources, based on seismic activity, confirmed that Pakistan had indeed conducted nuclear tests.

oday, the country is estimated to have a stockpile of nearly 165 nuclear warheads compared to India’s 156. Moreover, the KRL, in competition with the PAEC, operates a booming missiles program, in addition to other defense equipment.

Meanwhile, Khan became the target of Western media and governments quite early. In 1983, he was sentenced in absentia for trying to steal enrichment secrets from the Netherlands. He denied the charges, citing that the information he used to build the centrifuges was available in various sources which did not need any classified access. His conviction was overturned in 1986.

In 2004, Khan was accused of smuggling nuclear secrets and operating a nuclear black market. Pakistan, which is not a signatory to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and hence not bound by its terms, assured the international community of cooperation to avoid a backlash and possible sanctions.

To the nation’s surprise, the country’s hero appeared on national television and expressed regret over his actions, extending an unconditional apology. He confessed to having supplied gas centrifuge components to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Immediately, he was put under house arrest to prevent further proliferation.

His house arrest ended in 2009, when a court found the house arrest orders to be illegal; however, his freedom to move remained severely restricted and he was kept under watch until his death on October 10, 2021, a few weeks after he had recovered from COVID19.

As for the allegations, it is a story shrouded in mystery. Some of the alleged evidence implicating members of the nuclear black market network, was destroyed – not by Pakistan, but by the United States. Many of the suppliers that Khan was accused of collaborating with were from countries which were signatories to the NPT, making their actions even more questionable.

The deeper you delve into finding the so-called truth of this story, the deeper you’re sucked into a labyrinth of very paradoxical questions. Add to this, the fact that Khan retracted his earlier confessions and repeatedly suggested that he had made those statements under duress.

Nevertheless, one thing that does emerge clearly from his life’s work is that Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan probably had little respect for the lopsided international treaties that safeguard the world’s nuclear weapon and missile cartels. It is little wonder that he was termed “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden” by the frustrated CIA director George Tenet.

In Pakistan, Dr. Khan continues to be a revered figure, especially among middle-aged and senior Pakistanis who have a memory of full-blown hostilities between India and Pakistan. In the words of one professor, who wished not to be named, “he ate grass, so that we [Pakistanis] don’t have to.”

Coffee Extinction Is Nature’s Way of Telling Us: “Heal the World, Now!”

We have not known coffee for very long. Most accounts take us only as back as the 15th century, when it was first used by the mystics of Yemen. Yet, coffee somehow got the lion’s share of blame in many conspiracies around the world. Attempts were made with varying level of success by those who valued order over thrill to get it banned in the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Sweden, and Italy.

Now, the sublime beans seem to have had more than their due share of trouble, and are calling it a day.

Scientists have warned that 60% of the species of coffee are at risk of extinction. Out of 124 known types of coffee species, we actually use just two for our beverage: Coffea Arabica and Coffea robusta. But Arabica, the most popular one, is in trouble too.

Most of the species facing the risk of extinction are not used for making coffee. But even those must be conserved, scientists say, for cross-breeding and production of more resilient new varieties, which are sensitive to climatic threats.

While coffee will not disappear anytime soon, the quantum of the problem is significant. Ethiopia, the original source of the enigmatic beans, is still the largest African exporter of coffee. But 60% of the land that is used for coffee production there will become unsuitable by the end of this century.

A very nice-tasting species of coffee, the Coffea stenophylla, was seen in December 2018 for the first time since 1954. This was only a single plant, in an area that itself, scientists reported, was threatened by human encroachment and deforestation.

Rising global demand

According to experts, while global coffee demand is expected to double by 2050, at least half of the land used for coffee production may become unsuitable by then.

Even though a higher demand may support price in the short to medium run, we will actually be pushing the planetary boundaries in the longer run beyond what the Earth can sustain.

In the absence of appropriate support mechanisms, a higher demand will lead to a greater environmental stress, that is worsened by a warmer planet. Challenges to coffee production may increase in scope, as well as intensity, over time. The need to strengthen and augment the coffee ecosystem is urgent.

Anatomy of environmental stress

Human-induced climate change, diseases and pests, and deforestation are some of the reasons why certain species of coffee are already under threat.

Take Costa Rica, for example, where farmers are leaving coffee plantation in favor of orange production due to erratic weather, and more storms and droughts. This has meant an increase in the cost of the production of coffee. On the other hand, farmers find oranges to be more resilient in the face of climatic threats. This must be a difficult decision in a country where people feel a deep connection between Coffea and who they are.

But the damage from climate change does not stop here. As a result of the hotter climate and increasing rainfall levels, fungi such as the coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) and pests like the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) are appearing in areas that were previously free of them.

Meanwhile, growers in other areas, like Australia, which represents a potential substitute area to the more conventional centers of coffee production, lament less-than-usual rainfall, due to changing weather patterns.

Even if rainfall were optimal, Australian coffee is less environmentally stressed otherwise, and therefore, has 10-15% lesser caffeine. Caffeine production being a defense mechanism, a less stressful environment means less caffeine.

It, therefore, seems like there is also an optimal level of stress at which nature thrives. However, instead of respecting such subtleties and the intricate forces of balance in our world, we revel in the excesses that we cheer as the era of mass consumption.

Danger to livelihoods

As we see these problems from a distance, we may be tempted to conclude that there is still enough time to act and that appropriate measures will probably prevent something as extreme as coffee disappearing from the planet.

Yet, for those whose livelihoods depend on coffee, the question is rather irrelevant. For them, the coffee either stays feasible, or has to be replaced by some other crop as soon as possible. The falling prices of coffee worldwide have made things even more difficult, especially for smaller farmers.

Already 40% of coffee farmers are estimated to be living below the poverty line. Small farmers owning less than 5 hectares (12 acres) of land account for two-thirds of global coffee supply. They are not only poor to begin with but cannot compete with big producers in mechanization, automation, or cost-effectiveness.

Compare the small producers, with the big producers of Brazil, for example, which accounts for a third of global coffee production. Owing to greater sophistication, big Brazilian producers can produce more at a lower cost.

This is bad news for smaller farmers. When the overall production in the world is high – sometimes driven solely by Brazil – the price falls. This, again, effects small farmers disproportionately, who are producing at very low profit margins already. When the prices are too low, it is not unusual for them to have to sell below cost.

At the end of the day, poorer farmers may end up producing lower quality beans, at a higher relative cost, and not being able to incorporate more sustainable agricultural practices, like soil enrichment.

The result is that these farmers are trying to switch to other crops where they can. But switching to other crops is not a costless process, and may not always be a success. The disturbances from climate change and an erratic pricing system, have resulted in psychological health problems in poor farmers ranging from anxiety and depression to suicide.

Healing the world

The indifference of the world to the raging inequalities is heartbreaking. As we grab a $5 cup of coffee, on the go, we should think about the farmer who must have worked for 48 hours to make the same amount of money.

At the very least the world needs a mechanism to ensure a fair price to the coffee farmers, as their already challenged livelihoods are disrupted by the environmental footprint of the richer world. The richest 10% in the world account for more than 50% of global carbon emissions, after all.

So, where are we right now?

The Fair Trade movement is said to be helping farmers with a “fair” price. But even they admit that a price higher than what they are able to offer would be more desirable. Starbucks claims to procure 99% of its coffee “ethically,” where they have data going down to the name of the farmer who they bought the beans from along with the price (which they do not disclose publicly).

Others call for the key role of greater transparency in paying farmers, with some companies even mentioning the price they paid the farmer for the coffee clearly on the package. While these measures are worthy of recognition, they are more like first aid to a broken system that perhaps needs a much more drastic solution.

As for the search for more resilient strains, big investments are needed from governments and coffee companies. Many such trials for “future-friendly” coffees are already underway.

Yet arguably, the coffee’s endangerment is part of a bigger problem. The world leaders need to take responsibility for global environmental problems and devise an enforceable and credible mechanism to punish deviances.

Human-induced global warming is perhaps the central threat endangering coffee’s diversity. Extinction, in this perspective, is nature’s way of telling us, that all is not well. Manic consumption, obsession with profits, the disregard for the environment, and the inequalities plaguing our world actually have a cost. If it continues, nature is telling us, it will not continue.

As I sip my coffee and write from the comfort of my cozy room, climate change seems somewhat distant. The coffee farmer, who provided the beans for my coffee, meanwhile fights a battle for survival – her crop was ravaged by an unexpected storm.

(First published in Politics Today, here)

Life in the Holy Land amidst war: the view from an American SUV

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. Michael, who lives in Washington, D.C., is going on a picnic with his family. He checks his phone to catch up on the news. There is something about 67 children killed in Gaza during the previous week. He scrolls over the news.

Having read mainstream U.S. media, he thinks, it’s the Palestinians who are destabilizing Israel. There is a “clash” that began with the Palestinian people needlessly insisting to pray at some mosque, as was shown in the headlines. They have been attacking the police officials with stones, and escalating the conflict so much so as to fire rockets into civilian areas.

They may be occupied, but resisting even an illegal occupation with violence is not justified. “Hurry up, folks, we’re getting late,” he exclaims, starting his SUV, as if to take refuge from the voice within, pushing him to make a moral choice.

***

Somewhere in Gaza, Daoud is feeling completely helpless. A building in his neighborhood in Khan Yunis, was struck an hour back. He is confused whether to take his family out and hide somewhere, or to stay inside the building. Going out with his newborn is dangerous. “How long can we stay outside?” he asks, Iman, his wife, rhetorically. “What if a shrapnel injures Sarah (his newborn) and where will we hide?” he wonders. “The bombs can drop any moment, anywhere.”

While they’re discussing, their building is shaken by a huge explosion. It’s a shockwave from another strike that was aimed at the foundation of the building next to theirs. They look at the collapsing building from their shattered windows in horror. That building had a child playing on the balcony.

Even with the risks, Daoud decides to stay in his home, thinking that dying together, in one go, will probably still the lesser of two evils. One of his two sons, whom he has handed over to his brother, gives him hope that his generation may survive. But the rubble of the fallen building in front is also haunting him. What if his nephew, entrusted to him by his brother in exchange, dies with them?

***

Benjamin lives in Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel. Although most of the rockets are intercepted, one reached his neighborhood, injuring one person critically. He remains anxious throughout the night. The sirens can go off anytime. But unlike the Palestinians, he has a shelter to hide.

To him, Palestinians are at the center of all episodes of hostilities. Jews deserve to live in peace in their God-sanctioned lands, he tells himself, and Israel should do whatever it takes to ensure this. The sirens are blaring again. “When will this violence end!” he yells.

***

Since his expulsion from his real home in Acre, when the Zionist militias targeted Palestinian residents in the aftermath of the 1948 war, Ibrahim has lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where his family fled during the Nakba. The Jordanian authorities, which had control of the West Bank then, agreed to give his family the ownership of the house they settled in. But then, another war broke out in 1967, and Jordan lost control of the territory, which was also occupied by Israel.

Ibrahim is in an Israeli prison, after being held on charges of rioting. He cannot understand how an Israeli court could order the eviction of his family from their house, and is worried how his family will manage. “As an occupied territory, how can an Israeli court have jurisdiction,” he asks himself. “How can the Israeli state expel them on the basis of a ‘legal’ order?” he wonders.

***

Miriam was raised in Lod, a mixed city of Israeli Jews and “Arab Israelis”, i.e., the Palestinians in Israel. Though the two communities were socially distant, she has at least one childhood friend who is Palestinian. She is upset about the “riots”, “the conflict”, and “the disproportionate use of force by Israel.”

Miriam’s great-grandfather lost his life in the Holocaust. When Miriam was young, her grandmother used to tell her about the tragic experiences of those times. She looks at the state with suspicion now. To her, the Israeli state is led by right-wing hateful politics, and politicians vilify and persecute Palestinians to their benefit.

She is trying to find words to offer condolences to her Palestinian friend, who lost her brother to a mob of Israeli violence in the city the other day.

***

Michael’s back from the picnic. His children are jumping on his bed, as he urges them to sit down. He’s scrolling his Twitter feed. Every other post seems to be about massive destruction in Gaza. Biden, whom Michael voted for, has declared support for Israel’s right to self-defense, despite the fact that more than 248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, including 67 children.

He comes across a picture of a man running with his daughter, who is probably dead, in his hands. Michael’s eyes fall upon his own daughter who is still jumping on the bed carelessly. His eyes are now filled with tears. He wonders how could so many families and children be hit in error by the Israeli military, known for its pinpoint targeting capabilities.

He wants to retweet an opinion article by Bernie Sanders criticizing America’s backing of Israel, but stops short of it. It could affect his apolitical image on social media and his work.

Before putting down his phone, he tweets a quote by Dag Hammarskjöld instead: “Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own convictions.”

Michael’s conscience is somewhat lighter now. He mumbles to his wife that Hamas’s rockets killed 13 Israelis in a week before going to sleep.

—

(First published in Politics Today, here)

Of coffee, conspiracies, and the Sufis

That familiar aroma with the mystical quality of being able to pull you out from a spell with the most devious and captivating of fragrances, has a profound history. If it weren’t for the Sufis, the coffee beans could still have been limited to Ethiopia, or Yemen at best. Still, when the magical beans were actually passed on to our mundane world, they mostly ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Consider this.

The increased socialisation that came with the coffee culture did not just make the coffeehouses – kahvehane – a fertile ground for ideas, but also a cradle of conspiracies.

Coffee was new to the world, and so was the coffee culture. Istanbul got its first  coffeehouse by 1555, and by 1570, Istanbul already had 600. 

The growth was indeed magical. But so was the charm of the new coffee culture. The aroma was an invitation to think, reflect and question. 

People started to spend significant time in what were socially more acceptable alternatives to taverns in an overwhelmingly Muslim society. Musicians played music, storytellers told stories, some played games, some gossiped, but the mutinous plotted conspiracies too.

Among others, the coffeehouses had caught Janissaries’ fancy, who started to go there often. As the coffee culture came to be associated with free and somewhat rebellious thinking, the Janissaries’ frequenting them was not something the Sultan could have ignored.

Back in the 14th century, the Janissary corps was commissioned as special guard to the Sultan in the Ottoman Empire. But it had grown in influence over time, and now represented a threat to the Sultan himself.

Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) who remembered the execution of his brother, Osman II, by the Janissaries in a rebellion, banned coffeehouses in 1633, on the pretext that they had often been the source of disastrous fires. 

Historians, however, have pointed out that the real aim of the law was the threat of a rather metaphorical fire – namely, another rebellion. Some, on the other hand, contend that it was for religious reasons as the Sultan did not like these places of idleness and indulgence.

Whatever the rationale, this was not the first ban on coffeehouses in the Empire, but did stand out for its harshness. The coffeehouses in Istanbul were demolished and the violators of the ban, who were found having coffee – and even tobacco, a rather thornier issue for religious reasons – were punished with death.

The coffeehouses in Istanbul were still closed after over a decade of Sultan Murad IV’s death in 1640, lying “as desolate as the heart of the ignorant”, in the words of Katib Celebi.

With the passage of time, however, the laws got relaxed. Who was to stop the coffee, after all? The aroma of the dark brew returned to the streets of Istanbul and the coffee culture thrived for the next few centuries.

But over time, more and more coffeehouses came to be owned by the Janissaries themselves. So when the reformist and headstrong Sultan, Mahmud II (r. 1808-1939) took the daring step of dismantling the Janissary corps, coffeehouses were again shuttered. Not only did the state want to sever this source of income for many of them, but also feared they could become the launching pads for a reorganisation and resurgence of the troublesome corps. 

As the Janissary threat waned, coffeehouses started to reopen, never to be closed in the Empire again. But this time, the state had learned a lesson. It was just a matter of time until the palace would use coffeehouses to their advantage.

Beginning in Sultan Abdul Mecid’s reign (1839-1861), informants of the palace spread everywhere keeping an eye on what, besides coffee, was actually brewing in the coffeehouses. Thus, in a significant turn of events, the erstwhile hotbed of conspiracies got transformed into an apparatus to keep a check on the public’s pulse. 

Because of a virtually omnipresent intelligence, and with the dawn of the printing press, these cafes morphed into powerhouses for sharing of news, views, and satire. Criticism of the state did not go beyond satire. An artful narrator would read the newspapers and magazines out loud to those who could not, or simply did not want, to read. Thus, conversations in coffeehouses now began to become relatively more grounded. 

No wonder, when coffee from the Empire reached the West, the coffeehouses came to be known there as ‘penny universities’. Whether in Istanbul or London, the coffeehouses served as places for educated exchange in the midst of an inspiring aroma.

Coffee in Turkey today

Hardly anyone narrates legends anymore, or reads the newspaper to others – at least in urban Turkey today. But the tradition of small talk over coffee – or relatively recently, çay – lives on. In Istanbul, for one, alongside the chic private cafes that adorn its beautiful land- and seascape, the government-sanctioned Kiraathane – literally places of learning – with their dedicated libraries, offer opportunity for socialisation and learning at once. 

You can teleport yourself into a book to 400 BC, over a cup of çay or  kahve to bring your imagination to life. The origins of the Kiraathane can be traced back, again, to Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566) who ordered special books for coffeehouses – so that people didn’t waste time.

In addition to the traditional cafes serving the emblematic Turk Kahvesi – recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO – Turkey has over 500 branches of Starbucks, which makes the country second only to the United Kingdom within Europe. 

With a rich history of its own Turk Kahvesi, such a large number of the foreign coffee cafés is somewhat remarkable, not least because the Turk Kahvesi is one of the most authentic tastes in the coffee-verse.

According to experts, one explanation for the exceptional success of Starbucks in Turkey may be its ability to capitalise on the already established coffee culture in the country and target the new generation. For the hipper young people in Turkey now, the instant European alternatives to the Turk Kahvesi are chic, quicker to prepare, and suit their taste buds perhaps equally well.

In search of its soul

The obligations of express-paced modern life have reduced coffee to a kind of fast food. This, for coffee, and for us, the lovers of the beverage, is indeed heartbreaking. While speed may be valuable, coffee seeks a deeper meaning – thanks to its mystical roots.

The most frequently used reference to the history of coffee is ‘Mocha’ – yes, that smooth creamy delight with a dash of chocolate we all love. But did you know that Mocha, originally was, and remains, a port in Yemen, that was at the heart of the early coffee trade?

It is in Yemen that the extraordinary beans were first brought from Ethiopia, just across the Red Sea, a few miles away from the Port of Mocha, from where they eventually got popularised. Like much else that is connected with love and compassion, it is the Sufis that are credited to have sprung life into this hitherto undiscovered treasure, opening the gates of the blessed aroma to the world around the 15th century.

While tracing the name of the person responsible for the eventual popularisation of coffee is difficult, the feat is sometimes attributed to Shaykh Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili. No wonder, coffee is sometimes referred to as the Shadhiliye in Algeria to this day.

But, another account connects coffee to Abu Bakar al-Aydarus, a pious Sufi Shaikh and poet, who is even said to have written a poem eulogising coffee. He recommended the beverage to his followers. The entrancing aroma with the unifying quality of being able to awaken the head and heart at once, facilitated the Dhikr – remembrance for tryst between the soul and the spirit, as such.

Whosoever got to coffee first, what is largely agreed by historians is the role of the Sufis in the eventual diffusion of the enlivening aroma into the mundane world.

So the next time you decide to treat yourself with a rich cup of coffee, take a break from the outside world and let its blissful elan take over. The mystical connection of the beans may be your gateway to the sea of love and tranquil within yourself. From a deep silence, I can hear an echoing chant, “What you seek, is seeking you.”

(First published on the TRT World Digital, here)