On Coffee and Heterotopia

What’s your favorite winter holiday beverage?

Does the mere mention of eggnog, hot chocolate, or a peppermint mocha instantly conjure that festive spirit and celebratory mood? I know what you’re thinking, Dorothy - gin is a drink for all seasons, but let us attempt - however half-heartedly - to keep things marginally more liver-friendly before the New Year’s Eve champagne unceremoniously escorts us into the first of January.

No matter how earnestly I try to fall in love with the seasonal parade of beverages - each one promising warmth, comfort, and a fleeting sense of festivity - I inevitably come crawling back to one faithful companion. My reliable, trustworthy sidekick; my daily fuel; and, on certain mornings, the only reason I pry myself out of bed at all: coffee. I like mine black and strong, though I will, on rare and diplomatic occasions, settle for a latte. 

The most famous perk of coffee - caffeine - is a psychoactive substance beloved across the globe. It works its magic on the human central nervous system, giving us that delicious jolt of alertness, and is officially classified as a stimulant. Ah, what a grim and joyless world it would be if it weren’t for this marvelous mood-altering elixir!

Great! But what does any of this have to do with what we now call belly dance? 

Well, in true raqs sharqi fashion, the answer is - of course - complicated.

Coffee has a centuries-old presence in MENAHT regions, Egypt included. Egyptians were introduced to coffee during the Ottoman conquest in the early 1500s, and it didn’t take long for the drink to sweep through Cairo - but not without a controversy. 

This article examines the debate surrounding coffee’s status in the early 16th century - specifically whether it should be regarded as halal (permissible) or classified as khamr (mind-altering or intoxicating). Thankfully, the pro-coffee group of the time prevailed, and the vast majority of modern Islamic scholars do not consider coffee a prohibited substance when consumed in moderation.

It’s all well and good, but naturally the controversy didn’t stop with the beverage itself - because when has anything in Cairo’s history ever been that simple? 

Coffeehouses became a phenomenon in their own right, and some of the very scholars who had deemed coffee permissible for law-abiding Muslims weren’t quite as approving of the “coffeehouse culture” that quickly took hold.

As elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, venues serving coffee for in-house consumption became social hubs, mostly frequented by local men. 

These coffeehouses became a caffeine-fueled headquarters for discussion, open dialogue, and challenges to class structures and power dynamics. You could even call coffeehouses the original “freethinkers’ clubs” - sort of like your local pub, but with fewer hangovers. 

Moreover, as in many environments where oral transmission is the primary mode of information exchange, coffeehouses developed into important nodes of social and professional networking among their regulars. They also functioned as informal labor markets for artists and performers. For instance, an individual preparing for a family wedding might visit a coffeehouse known to serve as a gathering place for musicians, dancers, jugglers, and other traditional entertainers, thereby securing the necessary performers for the forthcoming celebration.

To further elaborate, I must introduce a term you might not have encountered before: heterotopia, or heterotopic spaces. This Wiki page covers the basics you’ll need and offers a few examples to help you grasp the concept.

So, Egypt has long maintained a curious tradition of blending the sacred and the secular within specific temporal and spatial contexts. 

At different times in its long history, Cairo was divided along geographic lines that neatly reflected socioeconomic hierarchies: the southern suburbs were the playground of the upper class, while the western suburbs were home to commoners and, shall we say, society’s more colorful characters. Areas near ponds and canals might have occasionally hosted the elites, though the day-to-day residents were firmly from the lower classes. Shrines and cemeteries, too, functioned as what we might call heterotopic spaces, where individuals from markedly different social strata inevitably mingled. Nothing brings a community together quite like reverence, ritual, and the occasional burial plot!

Sidenote: The religious shrines and cemeteries of Mamluk, Fatimid, and Ottoman Egypt are not exactly what one might describe as havens of quiet reflection we imagine today. Far from spaces of solemn contemplation, these sites frequently erupted into joyous, uninhibited celebrations of life - festivals for the living in all their unapologetically carnal glory. I may or may not devote an entire future blog post to the wonderfully unrestrained shenanigans that were, at certain points in history, entirely routine.

During mawalid, festivals commemorating saints, this mixing of worlds was not merely tolerated; it was expected - a rare occasion when Cairo’s social rigidities relaxed enough to allow the upper crust and the riffraff to be equally present. 

But these occasions had one particularly striking feature: the usual power dynamics were turned on their head. After centuries of living under one “flavor” of occupation or another, Egyptian natives remained markedly distinct from their various rulers - ethnically, socially, politically, and economically. Yet it was precisely within these celebratory heterotopic spaces and events, where boundaries bent and blurred in every direction, that Egyptians could temporarily invert the established hierarchy and assert control while maintaining a strong sense of self-identity. As you can imagine, the elites of the occupying powers were… less than enthused by this development.

It was within these rule-bending, gender-norm-disturbing spaces that professional entertainers were in their element. 

As I’ve noted more times than is probably polite, the very nature of their profession positioned them in conflict with prevailing societal values, which simultaneously stigmatized them as disreputable and depended on them for essential communal functions. Festivals such as mawalid and wedding celebrations were, in practice, inconceivable without dancers and musicians.

And this is where it all comes together. 

The coffeehouses - now functioning as networking hubs and informal hiring markets - were filled with individuals of ambiguous, liminal social status. In doing so, these cafés themselves turned into mini heterotopias: places where the rules were a little fuzzy, hierarchies were politely ignored, and anything that could be bent… probably was.

We have numerous written accounts of dancers performing in such venues, as documented by European travelers of the 19th century. I’ll spare you the long quotes, but I encourage you to revisit my rant, “S#!t Orientalists Say…”, which cites several examples of ghawazi entertainers performing in cafés or coffeehouses. And yes, that doesn’t even begin to cover the surviving Ottoman accounts of similar performances. Clearly, professional entertainers were as much a part of the coffeehouse scene as the beverage itself.

As entertainment halls began to emerge, coffeehouse performances didn’t suddenly vanish. They may not have been as polished or structured as shows in salons or music halls,  but they remained a vital component of the entertainment landscape across urban centers in Egypt, not just in Cairo.

Even at the height of the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema, these heterotopic spaces didn’t lose their original function as hiring hubs. Musicians, dancers, and other performers would congregate at coffeehouses in the afternoon, hoping to land a gig at a wedding or other celebratory event. Potential clients came to book a date, negotiate a price, or request references if their performer of choice was otherwise engaged. With the advent of the telephone, these practices became even more convenient - clients could leave a message with the coffeehouse staff, detailing their requirements.

The centuries-old subculture of the coffeehouses persisted well into the 20th century, seemingly fading only alongside the collapse of the awalem tradition in the 1990s. While coffee itself remains a beloved staple for many Egyptians, the cafés and coffeehouses are no longer quite what they once were. Back in the day, these places were equal parts caffeine hub, gossip HQ, and freelance audition stage for dancers and musicians - where professional entertainers could network, show off, and bend the social rules by the mere fact of their existence. Still, one thing hasn’t changed: cafés remain perfect spots to shoot shit, argue about ideas, and nerd out with friends. Maybe plan a revolution. Because honestly, where else are you going to do that with a cup of strong coffee in hand?

If this post proves anything, it’s that Egyptian entertainment and society are so intertwined that even coffee can’t escape its belly dance roots. So next time you sip that java, pause for a moment. You’re not just studying a dance form - you’re walking the line between worlds like the liminal badass you are.

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