When, in a moment of piety to Allah, the Caliph Al Hakam (ruler of medieval Toledo) was about to forbid wine drinking, his treasurer pointed out this would result in a disasterous shortfall in taxes that might prohibit the large extension of the library. The caliph was a scholar, a poet and a bibliophile, and as a result he quickly gave up the idea. Toledo remained a town of wine and learning for the next six centuries, seeming to rebuff the image of Islam as a universally extremist faith, until the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, beginning in 1492 pushed many of the Islamic & Talmudic scholars into the more liberal, intellectual environment of Fez.

(Source: Richard Erdoes, "AD 1000 : Europe at the end of the Millennium", Seastone: Berkley, 1998.)