A hookah (Hindustani: (Nastaleeq), (Devanagari), IPA: ; also see other names), shisha, or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking either tobacco, flavored tobacco (often muʽassel), or sometimes cannabis, hashish and opium. The smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation.
The major health risks of smoking tobacco, cannabis, opium and other drugs through a hookah include exposure to toxic chemicals, carcinogens and heavy metals that are not filtered out by the water, alongside those related to the transmission of infectious diseases and pathogenic bacteria when hookahs are shared. Hookah and waterpipe use is a global public health concern, with high rates of use in the populations of the Middle East and North Africa as well as in young people in the United States, Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia.
The hookah or waterpipe was invented by Abul-Fath Gilani, a Persian physician of Akbar, in the Indian city of Fatehpur Sikri during Mughal India; the hookah spread from the Indian subcontinent to Persia first where the mechanism was modified to its current shape and then to the Near East. Alternatively, it could have originated in the Safavid dynasty of Persia, from where it eventually spread to the Indian subcontinent.
Despite tobacco and drug use being considered a taboo when the hookah was first conceived, its use became increasingly popular among nobility and subsequently widely accepted. Gradually, burned tobacco has been commonly replaced by vaporizing flavored shisha. Still the original hookah is often used in rural South Asia, which continues to use tumbak (a pure and coarse form of unflavored tobacco leaves) and smoked by burning it directly with charcoal. While this method delivers a much higher content of tobacco and nicotine, it also incurs more adverse health effects compared to vaporizing hookahs.
The word hookah is a derivative of "huqqa", a Hindustani word, of Arabic origin (derived from ḥuqqa, "casket, bottle, water pipe"). Outside its native region, hookah smoking has gained popularity throughout the world, especially among younger people.
Names and etymology
In the Indian subcontinent, the Hindustani word huqqa (Devanagari: हुक़्क़ा, Nastaleeq: ) is used and is the origin of the English word "hookah". The widespread use of the Indian word "hookah" in the English language is a result of the colonization in British India (1858–1947), when large numbers of expatriate Britons first sampled the water pipe. William Hickey, shortly after arriving in Calcutta, India, in 1775, wrote in his Memoirs:
The most highly-dressed and splendid hookah was prepared for me. I tried it, but did not like it. As after several trials I still found it disagreeable, I with much gravity requested to know whether it was indispensably necessary that I should become a smoker, which was answered with equal gravity, "Undoubtedly it is, for you might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion. Here everybody uses a hookah, and it is impossible to get on without ...[I] have frequently heard men declare they would much rather be deprived of their dinner than their hookah."
Arabic أرجيلة ('arjīlah) is the name most commonly used in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Iraq, while nargilah (, ) is the name most commonly used in Israel. It derives from nārgil (), which in turn comes from the Sanskrit word nārikela (), meaning coconut, suggesting that early hookahs were hewn from coconut shells.
In Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, (на[р]гиле) or (на[р]гила) is used to refer to the pipe, while šiša (шиша) refers to شیشه (šiše) meaning glass bottle in Persian. The pipes there often have one or two mouth pieces. The flavored tobacco, created by marinating cuts of tobacco in a multitude of flavored molasses, is placed above the water and covered by pierced foil with hot coals placed on top, and the smoke is drawn through cold water to cool and filter it. In Albania, the hookah is called "lula" or "lulava". In Romania, it is called narghilea.
"Narguile" is the common word in Spain used to refer to the pipe, although "cachimba" is also used, along with "shisha" by Moroccan immigrants in Spain. The word "narguilé" is used in Portuguese. "Narguilé" is also used in French, along with "chicha".