By whatever name you call it, waterpipe smoking is an old tradition in many Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian countries, where smoking hookah, shisha, nargileh or hubblebubble gives pleasure to both men and women. Nowadays this tradition is spreading rapidly around the globe, introducing many Westerners to a (for them) whole new form of smoking delight.

 

Let's for the sake of convenience use the name "hookah" here: it's a bit of a job to mention all the names every time the thing is indicated (grin)! The hookah originally came from India, as a primitive contraption made out of coconut shell. Rapidly it spread via Iran to the whole Arab world where often the name shisha was/is used, and to non-Arab countries as Turkey, where it was called nargileh.

 

Only certain tobaccos are suitable for hookah smoking. Initially only the dark tobacco imported from Iran was used, after having been washed several times in order to dilute its strength. Eventually some hookah smokers put pieces of fruit in the water of their pipes to enhance the flavor, followed by adding fruit juice or oil to their water. From here to adding fruit to the tobacco itself, was only a small step.

 

 

Depending on locality, hookahs became known under many names of Arab, Indian, Turkish, Uzbek, or Persian origin. Three names are most commonly used: narghile, hookah and shisha.

 

Nargileh (from Persian nargil or "coconut") is the common name in Armenia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Israel, Bulgaria and Romania. The spelling varies: argileh, nargile, narghile, nargila, argila and argile can be encountered.

 

Hookah (from Arabic uqqa: small pot or jar) was the name the British encountered in India, with the result that hookah has become the standard name in English speaking countries. Sometimes it's spelled hooka, hookkah, hukka, huqqa, hookka... and probably many more ways.

 

Shisha (from Persian shishe: glass) is more commonly heard in Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. The spelling sheesha is less common. In the UK and the US the word shisha is often incorrectly applied to the tobacco (muassel) instead of the pipe (hooka).

 

In Iran the pipe is usually called ghalyoun or ghalyan. There are lots of different spellings though, like ghalyon, galyon, galyan, galyoun...

 

 

Hookah history is not just a matter of the past: it continues being written right now! In many Western countries one hookah bar after another opens, introducing its customers to the joys of smoking a hooka pipe. On the other hand, due to increasing attention to the dangers of (hookah) smoking, also a counter-current develops: in many communities the local hookah bar is or will be closed by the autorities. Thanks to non-tobacco herbal molasses, in other communities hookah bars are exempt from the smoking ban.