If you are on this page, it means that you love hookah as well as the kalyangid.ru site creators. It means that you do not just like smoking hookah, but also interested in hookah smoking culture and origins. So you’d better take the hose, take a deep pull and enjoy this article! Have a nice dive;)
A lot of people like smoking hookah in a modern society. In this article we will tell you why this activity is so popular and a bit about the origins of the hookah.
Hookah and East
When people first come to the hookah bar and see a shiny hookah body, water jar with ornate drawing (in other articles we will discuss different types of hookahs), getting into a calm and relaxing atmosphere, they start thinking about the origins of this activity and they understand – it is the East! So we turn to the sources.
Surely now noone will tell you why the hookah has a dominant position among different free- time activities in the East, but throughout the centuries there are a lot of references to shisha smoke in prose, poetry, poems, there are also a lot of images in various paintings of great masters. Hookah smoking in public places was available, surely, only for men. They were relaxing hiding from the scorching sun and sweltering heat, discussing future plans and playing backgammon or chess. Women could also smoke a hookah, but far away from curious eyes, it wasn’t an restriction, just the role of women in the eastern society did not involve visits of public places.
Let’s move to the West in XIX-XX centuries. That time Europeans who were in the East, at first did not admit the hookah. They thought it was an activity for loafers – sitting and smoking in the shade of the trees or in the tea house, calling smoking a strange device”stupid pastime”. Soon, however, the Europeans changed their opinion on the opposite. For women at that time it was the most popular activity, and now we can look at pictures of those times and see setted down smoking process in the XIX century.
Now let’s follow the movement of a hookah on the globe. In India, during the rule of Mughal Empire Akbar Celal-ud-Din, a few centuries BC, the hookah was very popular. From India, being modernized, hookah had started its march across Asia. In Lebanon and Syria smoking hookah wasn’t significant. In China it was, but mostly mixed with opium. In Japan, Mongolia and Korea hookah smoking is not part of the culture, but now in connection with the increased demand some hookah bars and lounges have recently appeared. As for Egypt and Turkey, but the debats who invented shisha in the traditional to the modern overview (see article about Khalil), make it clear that these two countries -real connoisseurs and the most important lovers of hookah smoking and its production.
The way people call hookah in different countries
In today’s market hookahs are presented in different shapes and sizes – low and high, classic and designed, simple and ornate – every fan will find something he likes according to his or her preferences and price. The variety of hookahs are huge, just like the variety of its names. The inhabitants of each country have given the name of hookah in their mother tongue when smoking became more or less popular. Therefore the names of this wonderful invention have accumulated a lot.
In all Arab countries such names as «shisha» (typical for Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Somalia), «narghile», «arghile» can be used (most often used in Armenia, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Greece, Cyprus Albania, Israel, Romania). “Narghile” – is a Persian word, formed, in its turn, from the Sanskrit and means “coconut”. This suggests that the first water pipes were made from coconut shell. From the Persian this word has migrated into many other languages changing its shape.
European hookah also has the right to exist. In Albania, the hookah called “lula» or «lulava», from the Romanian “tube”. But the word «shisha», which in Arab countries represents the entire device, is used only for the base bottle.
But the Croats, Serbs, Bulgarians, as well as residents of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina called tube “narghile”, from the Turkish “nargayl”. Sometimes the word has a skipped sound [p]. But the word «shisha» is used here to refer to hookah tobacco.
The Spaniards have given the hookah colorful name “kachimba”, while immigrants from Moroccouse the name “shisha”.
So where does this widely known word «shisha» come from? It turns out that initially it meant in Persian language “glass”. It is not hard to guess why people have started using this name for a device for smoking, the base bottle was made of glass. The list of countries where you can hear the name of a hookah is huge: Sudan, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Somalia, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria.
Eastern hookah in Azerbaijan and Iran is called «qalyān», or “hookah”, from the Arabic “boil”. The sound of gurgling liquid in the hookah’s bottle really resembles boiling water. This well-known name is also used in Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In these countrie special hookah bars and lounges have become very popular in recent years.
In Uzbekistan the hookah has a funny name “chillim.”
The name of hookah in English-speaking countries is often pronounced like «hookah». And the reason for that – the fact that India, the presumed birthplace of hookah, has long been a British colony, where the conquerors took an unusual way of smoking tobacco over. William Hickey, one of immigrants, arrived in Calcutta in 1775 and was surprised by the local traditions. In his memoirs, he mentioned that he could not appreciate the beauty of luxurious hookah, kindly offered to him. William was not fascinated by tobacco bitterness, and he would like to refuse such a treat. But his friend said that is impossible to do any business here without joint hookah smoking. This is necessary to maintain the business reputation. A kind of “pipe of peace” is even more important than lunch.
In Africa hookah smoking had been also widespread for a long time. Here its design has almost no differences from the present one, because it corresponds to the name of the essence: «dakka» – «a water pipe.”
What is a hookah
No matter how different hookahs in its names, content, size and decorations, all of them – Turkish, Syrian, Egyptian, Chinese – have almost the same shape and structure. Even outwardly hookahs, which can be seen in the souvenir shops of the East, do not differ from those shown in the engravings of XVIII-XIX century and in even more ancient drawings.
Therefore hookah can be called one of the most constant in its design. They all have large base bottle with a narrow neck with water (traditionally) or other liquid ( it affects the aftertaste of exhaled steam),the tube comes into the base bottle, the second tube is fixed outside above the water level (you get the steam through it), the last thing in construction is a bowl, where tobacco is smoldering. The smoke passes through water, bubbling, water is like filter and the smoke gets cleaned of contaminants.
Surely the very first hookahs were short-lived, not functional and not very beautiful. After India hookah came to Persia, and its development as a subject of art had begun: inventive Persians started working on it. At that moment base bottles and mouthpieces have appeared, its shape and size have changed. Production was manual and got to perfection by the best craftsmen. That time 4 main parts were defined: base bottle with water, the metal tube, a tobacco bowl and smoking tube (hose). Each artist was engaged in manufacturing only a certain part of the hookah. There were so called “bottle masters”, there were people who made metal tube, there were “bowl masters” which were making graceful cups, there were “ pipe makers” who were creating wonderful, flexible leather hoses and mouthpieces of precious stones. All these people have invested in each hookah warmth of their hands and souls, creating each time a new piece of art.
The culture of hookah smoking
So why do people like so much this sweet fragrant steam? Maybe the point is not only in the intoxicating effect of hookah smoking? Maybe it is the item itself, which for so many centuries was getting in the history, can give pleasure to each person? Probably everyone will be looking for the answers to these questions. But one thing we know for sure – the popularity of hookah smoking is not just because of its Eastern origin, it became a part of the culture of many countries and it have been a favorite pastime for a long time to say that this is just an idle fascination.
Enjoy smoking shisha, hang out, relax and have fun! And let our articles on kalyangid.ru help you to get into the culture of hookah smoking and will help to learn more about it.