English Words of Arabic Origin

Just for nitpicking: beer has been probably the oldest alcohol drink (archeology revealed beer jars some 5000 BC).

Alcohol was not initially forbidden in Islam, but after an incident where an important Imam drank too much and was not able to lead the prayers correctly, it was banned for drinking and can only be used for medicinal purposes.

And which Imam was that? I have never heard this story. I know for a fact that alcohol was gradually banned by Muhammad himself through decrees of God, revealed and preserved to this day in specific verses of the Quran, which are easily found by searching Quran.com or a similar site with an index of the Quran.

If you mean this incident happened at the time of Muhammad before the prohibition, then yes that's possible.

It's an interesting history, and far older than 5000 BC. It appears that beer was being produced in the ancient near east as much as 13,000 years ago. Ancient evidence from China, around 9,000 years ago (7000 BC) was of a beverage fermented from honey, rice and grapes, making it (technically, since it is fermented from a grain) beer, mead and wine, all at once!

I've never before heard the idea that any of these processes took place by "accident"; that is surely a folk conjecture. Indeed, fermentation is a natural process that can take place without human intervention at all; it's something that was discovered and refined, not invented, let alone by accident.

I have never even heard of alfalfa.

When I was a kid we used to grow alfalfa in a jar on the kitchen windowsill, so we ate it all the time, on its own, in salads, even in stir fry or jaffles. We are humans.

@Zupity, lol at that last sentence. Thanks for clarifying ;)

Also, your comment led me to look up jaffles, since I had never encountered the term before. They look quite tasty!

True, but people commonly say they're drinking alcohol and they mean specifically the alcohol ethanol. Methanol is not fun to drink.

alpaca