page_title: Hookah
hierarchical_section_title: Hookah
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Ce vieil homme rajput pose pour les visiteurs avec une épée sur les genoux dans le palais du Maharaja (fort Mehrangarh) English: This old man Rajput poses for visitors with a sword on his knees in the palace of Maharaja (Mehrangarh Fort)
context_page_description: A hookah, also known as the qalyān, is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored cannabis, tobacco, or sometimes opium, whose vapor or smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation.
  Health risks of smoking through a hookah include exposure to toxic chemicals that are not filtered out by the water and risk of infectious disease when hookahs are shared.
  There are two theories regarding the origin of the hookah. The first is that following the introduction of tobacco to medieval India by the Jesuits, the waterpipe was invented by Abu’l-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 originate in the Safavid dynasty of Persia, from where it eventually spread to the east into the Indian subcontinent during that time.
  The word hookah is a derivative of "huqqa", a Hindustani word, of Arabic origin.
context_section_description: A hookah (Hindustani: हुक़्क़ा (huqqā) (Devanagari), حقّہ (Nastaleeq), IPA: [ˈɦʊqqaː]; also see other names), also known as the qalyān (Persian: قلیان‎), is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored cannabis, tobacco (often Mu‘assel), or sometimes opium, whose vapor or smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation.
  Health risks of smoking through a hookah include exposure to toxic chemicals that are not filtered out by the water and risk of infectious disease when hookahs are shared.
  There are two theories regarding the origin of the hookah. The first is that following the introduction of tobacco to medieval India by the Jesuits, the waterpipe was invented by Abu’l-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 originate in the Safavid dynasty of Persia, from where it eventually spread to the east into the Indian subcontinent during that time.
  The word hookah is a derivative of "huqqa", a Hindustani word, of Arabic origin (derived from حُقَّة‎ ḥuqqa, "casket, bottle, water pipe"). Outside its native region, hookah smoking has gained popularity throughout the world, especially among younger people.
caption: An Indian man smoking hookah, Rajasthan, India.
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