Drunkenness

Abstract

The Graeco‐Roman world from the Homeric world up to Late Antiquity was a permissive drinking society: drinking was very much integrated in daily life as a matter of etiquette and social decorum, and it was learned from a young age on, at least for men. In the Late Antique Christian world, drinking belonged to the ethics of temperance, though the consumption of wine was very much accepted. In this, Christian writers followed Graeco‐Roman and Jewish tradition. The Qur'ān took a different stance. In the modern world, attitudes towards prohibition of alcohol and drunkenness prove to be a major dividing line between the western and the Muslim world.The origins of the division go back to antiquity.