La Hooka

A hookah (Hindustani: हुक़्क़ा (Devanagari, حقّہ (Nastaleeq) huqqah)[1][2] also known as a waterpipe[3] or arghile, is a single or multi-stemmed (often glass-based) instrument for smoking in which the smoke is cooled by water. The tobacco smoked is referred to as shisha (sheesha) in the United Kingdom, United States, Mexico and Canada.[4] Mutliple references have traced the origin of the hookahto India.[5][6][7][8][9] According to Cyril Elgood (pp. 41, 110), who does not mention his source, it was Abu’l-Fatḥ Gīlānī (d. 1588), a Persian physician at the Indian court of the Mughal emperor Akbar, who “first passed the smoke of tobacco through a small bowl of water to purify and cool the smoke and thus invented the hubble-bubble or hookah.” Nevertheless, a quatrain of Ahlī Šīrāzī (d. 1535)refers to the use of the ḡalyān (Falsafī, II, p. 277; Semsār, 1963, p. 15). Smoking the hookah has gained popularity outside of its native region, especially in the Middle East, and is gaining popularity in North America, South America, Europe, Australia[2] and South Africa.
"One report in 1566 described the use of the narghile (coconut) in Indore. Narghiles were coconuts that were mounted onsilver or other metals (Pritchett 1890). This was probably used for cannabis products. The hubble-bubble or hookah was a Middle eastern invention and the chilam appears to have been taken from the top of the water pipe and used independently. One variation was the panchachilam (five pipe) in which five bowls, each containing a different substance (including several types of opium, Cannabis, tobacco,and probably datura), were smoked together. One occasionally hears of this use today. Mushiran (1961:298) also mentioned that the smoking of tobacco, the substance now combined with ganja (Cannabis), was introduced by the Portuguese." (pp. 142-143 of the book Orgies of the Hemp Eaters, Autonomedia, 2004)
Contents [hide]
1 Names and etymology
2 History
3 Culture
3.1 Middle East
3.1.1 Arabworld
3.1.2 Saudi Arabia
3.1.3 Syria
3.1.4 Iran
3.2 South Asia
3.2.1 Pakistan
3.2.2 India
3.3 Nepal
3.4 Bangladesh
3.5 Southeast Asia
3.5.1 Philippines
3.6 South Africa
3.7 United States and Canada
4 Structure and operation
4.1 Components
4.1.1 Bowl
4.1.2 Windscreen
4.1.3 Hose
4.1.4 Purge valve
4.1.5 Water jar
4.1.6 Plate
4.1.7 Grommets
4.1.8 Diffuser
4.2 Operation
5 Healtheffects
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
[edit]Names and etymology

A small argileh
Depending on locality, hookahs or shishas may be referred to by many names: Arabic language uses it as Shisha (شيشة) or Nargeela (نرجيلة) or Argeela (أركيلة\أرجيلة) and they use it throughout the whole of the Arab World; Nargile (but sometimes pronounced Argileh or Argilee) is the name most commonlyused in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Nargileh derives from the Persian word nārghile, meaning coconut, which in turn is from the Sanskrit word nārikela (नारिकेला), suggesting that early hookahs were hewn from coconut shells.[10][11]
In Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina the hookah is called "lula" or "lulava" in Romani, meaning "pipe,"the word "shishe" refers to the actual bottle piece.[citation needed]
In Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, na[r]gile (на[р]гиле; from Turkish nargile) is used to refer to the pipe. Šiša (шиша) usually refers to the tobacco that is smoked in it. The pipes there often have one or two mouth pieces, and are usually shared between two people. The flavoredtobacco, 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, the smoke is drawn through cold water to cool and filter it. This, "narguile",[12] is also the common word in Spain, where hookah is also referred to as "cachimba",[13] though Moroccan immigrants in Spain use the word "shisha"....