Coffee cultivation first took place in southern Arabia;[4] the earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen.[4] In East Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in native religious ceremonies. As these ceremonies conflicted with the beliefs of the Christian church, the Ethiopian Church banned the secular consumption of coffee until the reign of EmperorMenelik II.[5] The beverage was also banned in Ottoman Turkey during the 17th century for political reasons[6] and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe