History of Hookahs – Page 2

Sweet Smell of Traditional Hookah

This is a great article I just found from the Now Magazine in Toronto. Here’s hoping you enjoy this newbie’s little story about his first experience with the hookah.

Pipe Dreams

Sweet smell of shisha mixes with rush-hour traffic in Little Arabia

By GLENN WHEELER

The number 54 bus from Eglinton station rolls through sleepy single-family Leaside and on into the shisha world of Lawrence East. Here, between Pharmacy and Warden, there’s as much Arabic signage as Mr. Sub — food stores, bakeries, butchers squeezed into the Middle East of east-end Toronto, all with the elegant lettering whose points reach to the heavens like the minarets of a mosque.

It’s midnight at the Oasis Juice Bar and Restaurant, and the place is packed with people gathered around 3-foot-high hookah pipes. The roar of end-of-the-week traffic mingles with the bubbles we churn up in the pipe’s bottom as we take turns offering up our lips and drawing from the mixture of fruit shavings, tobacco and molasses heated by little pucks of charcoal glowing orangey red on the very top.

Though tobacco is part of the mixture, the taste and feeling of shisha is decidedly different from North America’s. This stuff is sweeter to the tongue, and while the nicotine in cigarettes speeds the heartbeat, subtle shisha calms and relaxes. Slowly, I become conscious of my mouth muscles when I talk. Everyone seems to have articulation problems. A Syrian would have trouble understanding the Arabic of Morocco on any occasion, but now it’s even harder; at our table, they’re always having to break into English.

It’s a peaceful sense of well-being that smokers seek with each hookah inhalation, as much physical as mental — what pot smokers sometimes call a body stone, though this is less pronounced. Shisha, or as it’s also called, nargile, referring to the pipe, appeared after tobacco arrived from the Americas in the early 1600s. Eventually, offering the nargile and shisha became a mark of trust. In the East it still carries that social significance, but as the globalized world falls under the tyranny of economic competitiveness, more and more governments are trying to discourage the hookah.

Seems that lengthy, contemplative turns at the pipe discourage efficiency, as if that were a bad thing.

Oasis owner Hussein Ayoub grew up in Beruit, and in the Lebanese capital, as throughout the East, it’s still common to partake of the pipe after dinner. “It’s part of our life,” he says. “At the end of the day we sit down, smoke it and relax.”

The key to a rewarding shisha experience is to have enough time not to feel rushed, Ayoub says — an hour at a minimum, three if possible.

Ayoub has been selling cars since he arrived in Canada a dozen years ago, but since last year it’s his caf?© that’s kept him busy. He rented the empty shell of the building and transformed it into the kind of place he’d find in Beirut — although there he probably wouldn’t have had to spend $50,000 on the ventilation system for the smoking side of the caf?© to bring it into conformance with city bylaws.

From an interior design point of view, this restaurant could be any other; the comfy booths wouldn’t be out of place at Swiss Chalet. It’s the crowd that’s interesting — Muslim and non, women in hijabs, and a table of people speaking Russian. It’s mostly a 30-and-under crowd, and just about everyone is smoking and has the same slightly vacant look, as if their worries have floated into the air along with the smoke.

Our spirits ride on the upbeat mix of North African folk and techno called rai, the music of international star Khaled, who has to live in Paris because the fundamentalists in his native Algeria have issued a fatwa against him. Apparently, not everyone likes music about happy people in love.

Ayoub imports the shisha from Lebanon, and it comes with little plastic tips that each smoker slips on and off with a turn at the pipe. There are eight flavours of shisha, including strawberry, mango and apricot, but here and everywhere apple is the most popular. For $10.50, including taxes ($4 for an extra “head” or portion or shisha for second and subsequent smokers on the same pipe), you may transport yourself to a different mind space.

Ayoub purposely set up shop along this Muslim strip, thinking it would guarantee a supply of customers. It did, but it also attracted the curious and even some who mistakenly thought the caf?© with the hookah pipe was heaven on earth, a place to smoke pot and hash.

News of the caf?© has spread beyond the Middle Eastern strip, and business is so good that Ayoub is even thinking he should open a caf?© downtown and bring the ancient elixir to the people of the modern metropolis. The day after my shisha trip, I take a walk, popping into the local Starbucks for a solo espresso. But I’m not in the mood for the chirpy soundtrack. I quickly escape to the outdoors, where, in my blissed-out state, the sky seems bluer.

What Exactly is a Hookah?

The hookah has a long and storied history. Also known variously as a hubble-bubble, narghile, shisha, or water pipe, among other names, hookahs have been used for a mellow tobacco smoking experience in Asia and the Middle East for centuries. Coming to the Middle East from India, the hookah started out as a humble coconut shell. In Turkey, it evolved into the true hookah, becoming a mainstay of coffee house life during the 17th century. Hookah smoking is still very common in cafes and restaurants throughout the Middle East.

Many rituals, of preparation, lighting, and smoking etiquette, surround the use of the hookah. People gathered in the coffee houses to smoke together, exchanging news and stories–or simply sharing quiet, meditative time. Recalling a more relaxed and unhurried past, hookahs conjure tales of journeys along the Nile, long nights in exotically scented gardens, the spice of the bazaar, and the sinuous music of the belly dance.

Hookahs were smoked by women gathered for tea, by students engaging in intellectual discussion, men playing games of chance, and simple gatherings of friends for enjoyment and relaxation. Offering a guest a puff at the house hookah, or narghile, was a sign of welcome and hospitality. Rather than a habit of nervousness, as many might classify the cigarette, the hookah is an entry to tranquility and reflection. It is a connection to the past and an oasis of civilized fellowship in the frenetic present.

With such a long history, it’s not surprising that the craftsmanship in a hookah approaches the level of art; most hookahs are exquisitely detailed and beautiful. At one time, each part of the hookah was produced by a craftsman specifically trained to produce just that piece. Materials used included silver, crystal, and amber. When you add in the centuries of tradition and ritual in which the hookah is steeped, it’s easy to see that this ancient water pipe represents the nexus of a singular and luxuriant experience in smoke and social interaction–and why it’s becoming so popular in the West.

Hookas – The Ancient Art of the Middle East

Hookas – The Ancient Art of the Middle East

Source: Antika, The Turkish Journal of Collectable Art, February 1986 Issue: 11
By: G?ºnay Gercek

Throughout the ages, human beings have shown a special interest in intoxicating substances, and derived pleasure in delving into other worlds in their experiments with the new materials of this type which they have discovered. For this purpose, they have felt the need for a variety of devices. One of these devices is the hooka, also known variously as hookah, water pipe and hubby-bubbly. hookas were first used five centuries ago and they are a device still employed today-though not very commonly. Research conducted indicates that they were first used in India.

Born in India, the hookas spread to the countries of the Near East, East Asia, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, North and East Africa, and all the way to the Ottomans. In each country it has been subjected to various changes, and finally assumed its present form. Called various names in each country where it is employed, the term is in fact of Persian origin.

Since very early times, the Indians have been raising hemp and employing such plants as medicines. Originally only its seed was used to obtain cannabis oil, but with time, the qualities of the plant’s leaves were discovered and they were exploited in the production of intoxicants, thus leading to the discovery of hashish.

Thus drug was originally employed as a powerful anaesthetic, but with the admixture of other plants and spices, a sort of paste was produced and by eating it they made it a pleasure and habit to delve into a dream world. Not being satisfied with this, they attempted to obtain the drug in its pure form, for which purpose they felt the need for various devices. It was the hookas which arose as the natural result of those desires.

The precursor of the hooka is the narcil, a type of coconut which grows commonly in India. The inner meat of this nut was removed and the shell was pierced, following which a straw was placed inside, the resulting “device” being the first simple form of the modern hookas. It was from the name of this nut that this primitive device was also called narcil.

Subsequently the device reached Egypt by various routes where its form was somewhat changed. For example, the body was made from a gourd rather than from a coconut shell.

Although the name narcil was still adopted, owing to differences in pronunciation the /?ß/ sound was read as a/g/ and thus the word became entrenched as nargile, or hookas.

The Persians saw this device and liked it, and they developed it even further, adding a number of parts. The body, which originally consisted of a coconut shell and then a gourd, they made into a porcelain flask, and instead of the straw, they added a soft and flexible part which resembled a hose and which was mucn more practical. They called this part marpic, which in Persian means “snake coil.”

Around that time, tobacco was discovered and with the beginning of its use as an intoxicant, the Persians experimented with the substance. For this purpose, they developed a tray to be placed above the body which would hold the tobacco. Made of bronze to ensure its strength, this tray was given the name ser, which means “head”. It was also the Persians who first made use of the type of tobacco known as t??mbeki.

The Arabs also made use of the hookas. Nevertheless, they employed it in its primitive form, which is to say, using the coconut shell. Hookas with bodies of coconut shell, long wooden heads, set on iron stands and with hoses sewn from thick cloth were in use in Syria and the Yemen.

The arrival of the hooka among the Ottomans took place at quite a late stage. Although there is no specific date indicated, it would be correct to state that it was used after the introduction of tobacco into the country. At this point I believe there is value in taking a look at the establishment of coffee houses in our country.

There were no hookah bars among the Ottomans until the reign of Sultan S?ºleyman the Lawgiver. We learn from the history of Pe?ßevi that one was first opened in 1554. According to this history, someone by the name of Hakem from Aleppo and a nobleman by the name of _ems from Damascus opened a shop at “Tahtelkale” (modern Tahtakale, presently a commercial district of Istanbul), thus laying the foundations for the first coffee houses. Initially places frequented by people referred to as the “rabble,” coffee houses subsequently became places where doctors of law, theologians, and the upper classes met and talked while drinking coffee. With time, the quality of these places fell and became increasingly degenerate, and being regarded as haunts of idlers, they were subjected to vigorous prohibition during the reign of Murat III.

This prohibition continued up until the reign of Mehmet III, but since people could not be prevented from attending such places, even if only in secret, the prohibition was abolished at the end of his reign. It was during these years that tobacco entered the country. Tobacco, arriving from England in ships, was first sold as a drug, but with the subsequent discovery of its intoxicating properties, it began to be used exclusively for that purpose, since its consumption that way was more enjoyable. Thus, on the basis of all these facts, it would not be wrong to state that the use of hookass took place in the 17th Century.

The Ottomans made hookas according to their own tastes, and made them more useable. For example, above the “head” they placed a bowl the “head” they placed a bowl of baked clay and they added a mouthpiece to the portion of the hose which entered the mouth. The body they made of glass, crystal, rock-crystal, porcelain and even silver. To the heads, which they made of brass and silver, they added a pipe holder which were decorated at their extremities with plant motifs and carvings.

There were considerable differences in terms of manufacture and decoration between the hookas employed by the ordinary people (the “commoners”) and by the upper classes (the “greats”). In particular, the jewelled hookas decorated with precious stones and manufactured to order for the palace are worthy of acclaim.

The hookas used among the people were quite plain, while some were manufactured with two or three hoses and used by several people simultaneously.

For the date of use of hookas, whose employment began during the Ottoman period, it will be helpful to mention the entry into the country of glass, on account of the use of that material in the bodies. Glass gained particular value and great developments took place in the glass industry in the 16th to 18th Centuries. Indeed, the renown of glassware manufactured in Istanbul extended outside the borders of the country.

Glassmaking assumed the aspect of a branch of the arts during the reign of Murat II, and during the reign of Mustafa III, it was taken under the protection of the Palace. Nevertheless, since crysatl could not be obtained by chemical means in our country during this period, all the valuable Palace glassware of the time was made to order in Bohemia.

Towards the end of the 18th Century, the manner of obtaining cut crystal by chemical means was discovered. Thanks to craftsmen who were brought from abroad beginning with the reign of Mahmut I, its manufacture in our country began and crystal were of great beauty and desbign was produced.

During the reign of Selim III during the 19th Century, a Mevlevi by the name of Mehmet Dede set up a workshop in Beykoz, a place where the famous Beykoz glassware was made. Though following these workshops, which from time to time ceased activity and from time to time were open under the protection of the Padishahs, a glass factory was established at Pa_abah?ße in 1899 by a Jew by the name of Saul Modiani, it was unable to compete with the glassware being then imported from Europe and halted production. The first glass factory in the modern sense was established at Pa_abah?ße on the orders of Atat?ºrk in 1934 during the Republic period. The most beautiful of the hookass used during the ottoman period were those made at the Beykoz workshops.

To give a complete definition of a hooka, one could say that it was a device which permitted the smoking of a type of tobacco known as t??mbeki by means of eliminating excess nicotine by passing the smoke through water. T??mbeki or Persian tobacco, is a type originating in Iran and which is used only in hookass. The leaves and stalks of this tobacco are picked together, and after being subjected to special processing is made usable. T??mbekiis not chopped like tobacco, but is broken up by hand. A good quality of t??mbeki was at one time grown in our country in the regions of Hatay and Konya.

The use of hooka and the smoking of tombeki consists of several sections; the pipe, the head, the body, the hose, and the mouthpiece.

The pipe, is outside the hooka located at its highest pint, and is a plate with holes in it made of potters clay. Since the tobacco was also burned here, this was also referred to as ate_lik or fire pan.

During the Ottoman period, pipe making assumed the aspect of an important branch of the arts, and there were even special pipe markets in Tophane. Good quality potter’s clay the color of coral was worked her, and beautiful pipes of every size were made here. It is possible today to see in the Ankara Ethnographic Museum, examples of pipes remaining from ages past which are gilded, decorated, and glazed.

The head was a piece between the pipe and the body. It was made of hard materials in order for it to be resilient. The upper portion was shaped so as to hold the pipe, and this part was decorated with carvings. The head was general made of brass, coper, or bronze. Very special ones were made of silver. Near the point where these are connected to the body, there is a nipple-like protrusion onto which the hose was attached.

The hooka bottle, or body, most often was in the form of a pitcher with a narrow neck and broad belly. Though originally made of a coconut shell and even from gourds, these were subsequently made of glass, china, ceramics, porcelain, rock-crystal, and metals, including silver. The decorations on the hookas bottles made of crystal and cut glass during the Ottoman period are separate masterworks of art in themselves. Nowadays, only plain, ordinary glass is employed, and no attention is given to decoration.

The hooka bottle contains water, and there is a thin hose descending from the pipe. Thanks to this hose, the smoke coming in is cleaned somewhat in the water and at least some of the nicotine from the Persian tobacco is eliminated. The hose is a flexible tube capable of being bent every which way and is attached to the nipple-like protrusion on the upper portion of the head connected to the body. This serves to conduct the smoke cleansed in the hookas bottle to the mouth.

The most beautiful of these hoses were made in the Ottoman period, and in the 19th Century, their manufacture assumed the aspect of an art, at that time, there was even a special market for them alongside the Egyptian Bazaar, at the approach to the district of Mahmut Pa_a. Here, colourful hookas hoses were manufactured from sheepskin leather. The leather was cut in strips two fingers wide, and after being glued, these were wrapped around an iron rod then tied with thin wires. After drying, the rod was pulled out, thus producing the hookas hose. Since this leather did not keep its resiliency for long periods of time it is difficult to find hookas hoses nowadays. Today, they are made entirely of plastic and they are decorated with various strips of cloth or velvet.

The mouthpiece was attached to the end of the hose and was the part placed in the mouth and sucked upon. In the past, only amber was used to make these mouthpieces, and their manufacture was a separate art. The part of the mouthpieces, and their manufacture was a separate art. The part of the mouthpiece actually placed in the mouth was a thumb-shaped knob. The best mouthpieces were in the form of large sweet water grapes, and were given the name “goat’s teat”. These thickened towards the middle, tapered off towards the end, and were made of amber. At one time, the mouthpieces made of reddish amber were the most esteemed. Nowadays, these mouthpieces do not receive the importance they deserve, and plastic has assumed the place of amber.

Though hookas are used today, they have lost their former importance. Since their use, preparation, and transportation are not very practical, they are used by very few persons for pleasure. Nowadays, one sees them being smoked with pleasure in shoreside coffee houses along the water.

Puffin At The Ole’ Hubble-Bubble

Puffin at the Old Hubble Bubble

Source : Skylife

The hubble bubble was introduced to Turkey from either India or Persia and provided centuries of enjoyment for Turkish smokers. In Ottoman Istanbul the water pipe or hubble-bubble pipe became an objet d’art, with bottles of crystal, coloured glass or even silver, finials in the form of silver flowers or fruits, gilded pipe bowls, and amber mouthpieces. They were a decorative appurtenance of coffee houses and wealthy houses and wealthy houses alike. Until relatively recently all coffee houses in Istanbul had a special corner reserved for hubble bubble smokers, and if by accident you might sit among them the disgruntled glances soon obliged you to move elsewhere. hubble bubble smokers used to be the earliest and most coveted customers at Istanbul’s coffee houses.

At the first light, rubbing their eyes, they would sit upon the couch or sedir before the newly lit stove waiting for their morning hubble bubble before setting out to work. Like everything else from the past the hubble bubble has been largely forgotten. However, although it is no longer the national pastime it once was, it is kept alive in a few coffee houses in such districts of Istanbul as Beyazit, Aksaray, Topkapi, Unkapani, Kasimpasa, Besiktas and Kadik??y by old and new adherents of this traditional pipe. An advanced grade hubble bubble smoker may spend up to three hours over the ceremony. Most such smokers have their own personal hubble bubble at the coffee house. This is kept away from sight and used by no one else even if the smoker does not come for months.

Still there are some who carry their own silver mouthpiece with them in their waistcoat pocket just in case someone else might have used it meanwhile and defiled the amber mouthpiece with their lips. The dedicated smoker brings his own piece of the finest t??mbeki tobacco for the one trusted waiter who knows exactly how much to dampen and place on the l?ºle, and how large a piece of live coal to set on top of it. The most famous coffee houses have today disappeared, but their memory remains, such as Pirin?ßci in Kuledibi, G?ºll?º Agop Kiraathanesi in Gedikpasa, Valide Kiraathanesi in Emin??n?º, Ligor Kiraathanesi under the Galata Bridge and Erzurum ?áayevi. Emirgan ?áinaralti still survives but the hubble bubble ceremonial has gone, along with its peaceful bubbling sound and wavering smoke.

One place where hubble bubble smoking has not been forgotten is Erenler hubble bubble situated in ?áorlulu Ali Pasa Medrese at ?áemberlitas between the Blue Mosque and the Covered Bazaar. Of the 150 or so regular smokers, 30 have their own hubble bubble. At all times of day curious tourists can be seen here watching the smokers puff away at their pipes. A word of advice if you happen to be in such an establishment: Lighting your cigarette from the bowl of someone’s hubble bubble is an unforgiveable sin, and will certainly infuriate the smoker. Erenler hubble bubble’s proprietor S?ºkr?º Usta of Sivas, who has been in this business for 20 years, is optimistic about the future of hubble bubble smoking. He says that many new customers try out the hubble bubble every day, and that some become regulars. He even serves that breed of early morning smokers which I had assumed to be extinct.