Hookah - History

History

Initial traces of hookah smoking have been found in the North Western provinces of India in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. In North India, it is a great tradition followed by Gurjars, Jats, Bishnois, Rajputs, etc. According to Cyril Elgood (PP.41, 110) it was in India where the physician Hakim Abu’l-Fath Gilani (d. 1588), at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar I (1542 - 1605 AD) invented the idea. Following the European introduction of tobacco to Persia and India, Hakim Abu’l-Fath Gilani, who came from Gilan, a province in the north of Iran, migrated to India. He later became a physician in the Mughal court and raised health concerns after smoking tobacco became popular among Indian noblemen. He subsequently envisaged a system which allowed smoke to be passed through water in order to be 'purified'. Gilani introduced the ḡalyān after Asad Beg, the ambassador of Bijapur, encouraged Akbar I to take up smoking. Following popularity among noblemen, this new device for smoking soon became a status symbol for the Indian aristocracy and gentry. However, a quatrain of Ahlī Shirazi (d. 1535), a Persian poet, refers to the use of the ḡalyān (Falsafī, II, p. 277; Semsār, 1963, p. 15), thus dating its use at least as early as the time of the Shah Ṭahmāsp I. It seems, therefore, that Abu’l-Fath Gilani should be credited with the introduction of the ḡalyān, already in use in Persia, into India.