The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 is a 2005 book by Dutch-American historian and Iranologist Rudolph P. Matthee. Metthee studies the significant role of psychoactive substances such as wine, opiates, tobacco, coffee, and tea in Iranian society between the 16th and 19th centuries. He explores the cultural, economic, and political implications of psychoactive substance use in Iran, examining both popular practices and the responses of religious and secular authorities. The book received the 2006 Albert Hourani Book Award and the 2006 Saidi-Sirjani Award from the International Society of Iranian Studies. A Persian translation was published by Namak Publications in Tehran.
Background In a 2024 interview with ABC Australia, Matthee revealed that his interest in Iran partially stems from the fact that as an undergraduate in Holland, he chose an exotic subject to explore (Iran). In 1976-77, he also lived in Iran for one year, and there became acquainted with the widespread use of opium. This initial interest ultimately developed into a long-term academic engagement, culminating in the publication of The Pursuit of Pleasure. During the interview, he explained why Opium consumption in Iran goes hand in hand with tea, especially considering tea's dehydration side effects, and the social aspect of tea drinking in Iran and Asia in general. Matthee reflected on the "dividing line between coffee and tea" in Europe, explaining why some regions in Europe tend to drink tea (especially Protestant countries, the U.K. and the Nordic countries), while others were dominated by coffee.
Summary The book is a social history that studies the production, trade, and consumption of psychoactive substances in Iran during the Safavid (1501-1722) and Qajar (1796-1925) periods. Using Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and European sources, including travel accounts, chronicles, and commercial records from the Dutch and English East India Companies, Matthee demonstrates how wine, opium, tobacco, coffee, and tea shaped Iranian society while highlighting how actual consumption patterns often contradicted Islamic legal norms, especially regarding wine and opium.
The book is structured chronologically in two parts. The first section studies the Safavid period, where Matthee discusses the centrality of wine in court culture despite Islamic prohibitions. Wine consumption served symbolic functions: it demonstrated royal power beyond religious law, as the Shah's divine status supposedly placed him above Islamic strictures, and it facilitated social bonding among elites. Opium, legally permissible and affordable, was widely used across all social classes primarily for medicinal purposes, consumed as pills rather than smoked. The rapid adoption of tobacco in the early 17th century—making Iran one of the first regions outside the Americas to embrace smoking culture—and the emergence of coffeehouses as spaces for both leisure and potential political subversion, illustrate what Matthee argues was a "vibrant rather than atrophying society" readily incorporating new consumables.
The second part focuses on the Qajar era, marked by transformations. While the Qajars officially projected greater piety and temperance due to their weaker legitimacy and dependence on clerical support, wine consumption persisted privately and increasingly included imported spirits like vodka and champagne. The shift from eating to smoking opium in the 19th century created more severe addiction problems and transformed Iran into a major opium exporter, with consequences for food production and rural society. The Tobacco Revolt of 1891, where Iranians boycotted tobacco to protest a British monopoly concession, demonstrated how these substances could catalyze political resistance. Tea gradually displaced coffee as the national beverage, influenced by Russian and British imperial preferences and falling prices that democratized consumption across classes.
The book highlights the discrepancy between normative religious prescriptions and everyday practices, and argues that Iranian society maintained a complex accommodation between official Islamic ideals and popular indulgence. Economic considerations often trumped moral concerns, as rulers relied heavily on tax revenues from these substances. The book also illuminates class distinctions (wine remained largely elite while opium crossed social boundaries), gender dynamics (women's segregated consumption patterns), and regional variations in consumption.
Translations A Persian version was published by Namak Publications in Tehran.
Awards Winner of the 2006 Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies Association Winner of the 2006 Saidi-Sirjani Award, International Society of Iranian Studies
Events In July 2019, the House of Writers in Tehran hosted a review session for the Persian translation of "The Pursuit of Pleasure," translated by Mani Salehi-Allameh and published by Namak Publications. The event featured speeches by the translator alongside scholars Ebrahim Musapur and Seyyed Saeid Mir-Mohammad-Sadeq, bringing together Iranian literati to discuss Matthee's examination of intoxicants and stimulants in Iranian history.
Critical reception
Yann Richard of Sorbonne Nouvelle University considered the book a natural continuation of Matthee's scholarship on Iranian social history, and commended his "masterly erudition" in synthesizing sources in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, French, German, Dutch, and English, including contemporary Iranian chronicles, European travel accounts, and commercial archives from the English East India Company and its Dutch counterpart, the VOC. Richard welcomed the focus on the "other side" of history—pleasure and consumption rather than wars and politics—and highlighted Matthee's analysis of how royal wine drinking among Safavid shahs served as a demonstration of their suprareligious status, being "beyond the strictures of Islam" and embodying the body politic. The review drew attention to the work’s thoughtful engagement with opium's transformation from medical use to destructive social problem when smoking replaced ingestion in the nineteenth century, and tea's triumph over coffee due to British and Russian imperial influence. While identifying some shortcomings, including the absence of Xavier de Planhol's work on Shiraz wine and a "simplistic transcription" that rendered some terms into "odd riddle," Richard concluded the book was insightful and valuable.
Samvel Margarian of the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies described Matthee's monograph as a deeply researched account of the import and diffusion of stimulants in Iran between 1500 and 1900, singling out the author’s careful tracing of the trade routes through which these goods entered the country. Margarian drew particular attention to Matthee’s insight into the influence of Georgian and Armenian viticultural traditions on Iranian wine culture. According to Margarian, the book convincingly shows how top-quality Georgian wines were brought into major Iranian cities, largely by Armenian merchants from New Julfa, and notes Shah Abbas's frequent participation in Armenian Christian festivities where alcohol was consumed. He was especially struck by Matthee's discussion of how Persian drinking practices, while preserving indigenous elements, absorbed Caucasian customs such as structured feasting rituals and formalized toasting traditions that echoed Sasanian etiquette. Margarian noted the inclusion of specific regional data, such as late-19th-century vodka consumption, as adding empirical depth to the analysis. Aside from pointing out a minor chronological error concerning Griboyedov's death, Margarian praised the work as "a clear and lucid presentation of the use of stimulating substances in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern Iran."
Richard W. Bulliet described the work as a major contribution that adeptly used the post-revolutionary debates in Iran as a lens through which to explore four centuries of social and economic dynamics surrounding intoxicants. He emphasized Matthee’s impressive command of sources—particularly his ability to navigate Dutch East India Company archives alongside Persian and various European texts—which added depth and breadth to the analysis. Bulliet also praised the book’s clear periodization, distinguishing between the Safavid and post-Safavid eras, and singled out Matthee’s sophisticated handling of the contradiction between widespread royal indulgence in alcohol and recurring clerical efforts to suppress it. He pointed to Matthee’s compelling argument that this royal excess echoed pre-Islamic models, with Safavid monarchs portrayed as "doomed by their rank to alcoholic overindulgence." Bulliet found the sections on 19th-century domestic production and export of tea, opium, and tobacco especially valuable, noting how the profitability of opium cultivation disrupted food production, creating tensions in the rural economy. While he suggested the Iranian case could have been more explicitly tied into global historical trends, he described the book as a "lucid, precise, and information-packed volume" that sets a high bar for social and economic historiography. Bulliet saw the work as a compelling illustration of Iran’s historical complexity, where "tolerance and personal enjoyment repeatedly reemerge after episodes of puritanical control."
Michael Pearson described the book as a strong contribution to the social history of early modern Iran. Pearson commended the book's thematic rather than chronological organization and its demonstration of how analyzing substances that provided pleasure opened "new ways to see Iranian society" and illuminated Iran's relations with the expanding world economy. The reviewer particularly appreciated Matthee's nuanced treatment of the gap between Islamic prohibitions and actual practice, noting how the author "convincingly demonstrated that wine was very widely consumed" despite religious strictures, with the ulama lacking political power to enforce their prohibitions. Pearson highlighted the book's attention to class distinctions (wine being too expensive for most Iranians), regional variations, and the impact of changing global trade patterns, especially regarding tea's transition from exotic foreign commodity to universal beverage. While acknowledging the work's richness in covering alcohol, tobacco, opium, coffee, and tea, Pearson noted that other forms of pleasure like games, hunting, poetry, and prostitution might have enhanced the study, though he concluded this was "a very minor cavil" for what he deemed "a very rich and readable book," "a gripping read," and "an excellent study" that "deserves to be very widely consulted."