The Islamic Ethics of the Wine Tax
The wine trade in medieval Tunis was lucrative, but it caused a moral quandary for the ruling Hafsids.
Between 1288 and 1300 European merchants competed with one another to obtain the right to collect duties on wine shipments to the port of Tunis on behalf of the Hafsid caliph who ruled the city. Winning bids ranged between 18,000 and 34,000 bezants – at around the same time, a large merchant ship and all its cargo was valued at just over 20,000 bezants. Referred to in Latin sources as the gabella vini (from the Arabic qabala, ‘to receive’) this was a form of tax farming: a common and ancient practice for states across the Mediterranean, whether applied to land or other sources of wealth. In exchange for a lump sum payment, merchants had the right to collect and keep all or most of the tax revenue for a set period of time.
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