Depending on locality, hookahs are known variously as a water pipe, nargeela/nargile/narghile/nargileh, argeela/arghileh, shisha/sheesha, okka, kalyan, or ghelyoon or ghalyan. Many of these names are of Arab, Indian, Turkish, Uzbek, or Persian origin. "Narghile" (نارگيله) is from the Persian word nārgil (نارگیل) or "coconut", and in Sanskrit nārikela (नारीकेल) since the original nargile came from India and was made out of coconut shells[1]. "Shisha" (شيشة) is from the Persian word shishe (شیشه, literally translated as "glass" and not bottle). "Hashish" (حشيش) is an Arabic word for grass, which may have been another way of saying tobacco. Another source states, "In early Arabic texts, the term hashish referred not only to cannabis resin but also to the dried leaves or flower heads and sweetmeats made with them".[2] "Hookah" (Arabic حقة, Urdu حقہ) itself may stem from Arabic uqqa, meaning small box, pot, or jar. Both names refer to the original methods of constructing the smoke/water chamber part of the hookah.
"Narghile" is the name most commonly used in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Palestine, Israel and Romania, though the initial "n" is often dropped in Arabic. "Shisha" is more commonly seen in Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. In Iran it is called ghalyoun or ghalyan (قليان) and in Pakistan and India it is referred to as huqqa. The archaic form of this latter name, hookah is most commonly used in English for historical reasons, as it was in India that large numbers of English-speakers first sampled the effects of the water pipe.
Tobacco smoking was not the original use of hookahs, as there are many examples of hookahs in both art and archeology prior to the arrival of tobacco in the Old World. In this period, the most commonly smoked substances in hookahs were opium and hashish. After the arrival of tobacco in the Old World, hookah use became more widespread because of the lower level of intoxication induced by tobacco smoking, although the practice of smoking opium and hashish in hookahs is not extinct. While all forms of smoking are looked down upon by highly orthodox Muslims, tobacco is generally more accepted than opium and hashish.
The most commonly-used hookah tobaccos (known as tobamel or maassel) are produced using a 1:2 mixture of shredded tobacco leaf mixed in with a sweetener such as honey, molasses or semi-dried fruit. Originally, tobacco was mixed with one of these sweeteners to form jurâk, a moist, flavorless tobacco. The fruit-flavored hookah tobaccos popular today got their start in the late 1980s when Egyptian tobacco companies began experimenting with flavored tobacco as a way to sell more of their products to women.Contemporary manufacturers have begun to use glycerin as the primary sweetener in hookah tobaccos because of its humectant qualities and subtle sweetening properties that accentuate the various tobacco flavorings. Today, shisha tobacco is often mixed with dried fruit, natural extracts, and artificial flavorings to produce a varying assortment of tobacco flavors, including: apple, strawberry, rose, mango, cappuccino, vanilla, coconut, cherry, grape, banana, kiwifruit, blueberry, Arabian coffee, mixed fruit, watermelon, cantaloupe, cola, lemon, apricot, licorice, and mint. This proliferation of flavors is rather new, starting perhaps in the mid-1990s.
