Coffee cultivation first took place in SouthernArabia;[5] the earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen.[5]In the Horn of Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in local religious ceremonies. As these ceremonies conflicted with the beliefs of theChristian church, the Ethiopian Churchbanned the secular consumption of coffee until the reign of Emperor Menelik II.[6] The beverage was also banned in Ottoman Turkey during the 17th century for political reasons,[7] and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe.