Forced alcohol consumption produced public drunkenness among converts

Evidence

One way in which the new converts were at times subjected to pressure to conform to Christian ways was by having forbidden food and drink forced upon them. As far as alcoholic drink was concerned, at least, there is plenty of evidence that the new ways were inculcated with some success, and that some converts readily availed themselves of what was offered. Even the most rigorist of Islamic regimes rarely succeed in stamping out the drinking of alcohol altogether, and in al-Andalus the ban seems always to have been administered with some laxity, especially in Granada in late medieval times. The new enforced freedom with which the converts had to cope (and drinking might be for some of them more an obligation than a matter of free choice) led to results that might have been predicted: drunkenness and disorder. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 273

Categorization

• CANDY: The idea that formerly teetotal new converts could be ‘obliged’ to drink wine and end up publicly drunk is a sharp, darkly comic historical tidbit.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 273