By definition, the Shisha -- also known as “shisha,”  “nargeeleh,” “nargile," “Argilah” or "Hubble-bubble" (for the muted burbling noise it makes), is simply a water pipe used to smoke tobacco. Most likely, it was introduced to Turkey from India. That was in the second half of the fourteenth century. However, it seems that nobody is quite sure how long before that it was known to the Indians. Some references claim that Persia was its origin that exported it to Turkey, where it has provided centuries of enjoyment for the Turkish smokers and spread from there to other countries.

   Regardless, whether its origin was Persia or India, once the Shisha reached Turkey, its route was destined to go from there to neighbouring Arab countries - Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Egypt. At each stop of the shisha's hazy path, it has developed into a more sophisticated apparatus. It went from the rudimentary coconut-and-straw look of its Indian roots to its current form, which is essentially a glass vessel with hoses to smoke from attached to the body, a head that holds tobacco and hot coals and a straw that runs from the head through the vessel.

    Initially, smokers used shishas to inhale pure, hardcore tobacco. Arab countries have added flavor to the tobacco, which resulted to the modern, elegant and enticing Shisha with its present-day signature appeal.

"With a shisha, you can smoke aromatic tobacco," one Shisha addict friend told me. "I've tried flavors like apple, strawberry, melon and even rose. I just like the taste of it."

    Perhaps the flavored tobacco gave the pipe an even firmer platform to reach its popularity. In any case, the shisha hit its heyday when it reached the Ottoman Empire in the early 1600s. With the introduction of the tobacco to Turkey, a coffeehouse culture centered on smoking sprung up throughout the country.

    The shisha, of course, became the nucleus of social interactions, a status barometer and, eventually, a symbolic tradition. Social gatherings were held around shishas in classy salons, where men (or women in their own salons) would yield to the ecstatic numbness that overcome the senses with every inhalation.

    Shishas eventually became a novelty in the Anglo cultures as well. The British were big fans, and they even popped up in the United States during the 1930s and '60s. Even recently, new shops catering for the needs of shisha smokers have come up in many parts of the world, with prices ranging between 20$ for the basic one and up top thousands of dollars for the fancy crystal one with a golden mouth piece and golden holder of the clay part.

    "I usually smoke it with two or three people," said my friend Mohammed, who owns a small shisha himself. "I don't think I'd smoke alone. It's very social; it's nice to invite friends over to our favourite Cafe, smoke a bit and have something to drink.

    "Plus, it isn't addictive like nicotine," he added, referring to the argument that shisha smoking is more lung-friendly, as the water in the vessel supposedly filters the tobacco. "People smoke shishas to relax."

    However, his statement is really very controversial. One site on the Internet quoted a so-called doctor, saying that each shisha (Tobacco portion used for a shisha) produces tar and nicotine equal to 51 cigarettes!! Logically that is not possible, because the tobacco used for one shaisha is equal exactly to 3 cigarettes. Other medical sources confirm that shisha tobacco, washed several times before preparation, then being filtered through water, is definitely much less harmful than ordinary cigarettes. Bur nevertheless, it is still harmful.

     In no time, the water pipe or Hubble-bubble pipe became an object of art in Ottoman Istanbul, with bottles of crystal, coloured glass or even silver, finials in the form of silver flowers or fruits, gilded pipe bowls and amber mouthpieces; they were a decorative appurtenance of coffee houses and wealthy homes.

    Until the early years of the twentieth century, coffee houses in Istanbul had a special corner reserved for shisha smokers - they used to be the earliest and most coveted customers at Istanbul's coffee houses. They would be sitting upon the couch to have their morning shisha before setting out to work. It is in fact one of the oldest and deepest rooted traditions in Turkey, with both men and women finding great pleasure in smoking the water pipe.

     Shishas soon became important status symbols. Offering one to a guest became an important sign of high standing and trust, and withholding it could be taken as a serious insult. In Ottoman Turkey shishas were used as a treaty device. The Turks would offer it to diplomats in a gesture of peace between two countries (which reminds us of a very similar tradition practiced much earlier by the Red Indians). The shisha's role in Turkey was so great that a diplomatic crisis broke out in 1841, when the Ottoman Sultan refused to offer the French ambassador a chance to smoke with him.

    Not all tobaccos qualified for usage in the shisha, and only the dark tobacco  imported from Iran (called Ajami) was favourable with the shisha smoker. This tobacco was washed several times before use, as it was extremely strong. Only oak charcoal was used on the top of the tobacco. Some professional shisha smokers used certain fruits, like sour cherries or grapes in their water containers just to enjoy the motion it created in the water. Other people enjoyed adding pomegranate juice or Rose oil to their water for added flavor or aroma.

    In the Arab World, shishas spread quickly, especially in Egypt. But the Egyptians found the crystal bowel too expensive, and started looking for replacement. Eventually, they brought a coconut fruit and made two opposite holes to extract the syrup inside and then they used a bamboo stick as a substitute for the rubber tube. The haggar (clay part) was made of burnt clay, where you place the tobacco on. Thus the process of producing the shisha was launched successfully and the Egyptians named it “gouza” synonymous to the name of the coconut fruit in Arabic.

Then the Egyptians had to find the right tobacco. By that time there were many people working in selling the rolled cigarettes, as their trade was flourishing. It was known that the tobacco used in the rolled cigarettes was cut in fine layers, different than what was used by the Ottomans.

    During the early stages of the gouza, the tobacco was not stable on the haggar, and it became necessary to solve that problem. In one of the trials, a person who enjoyed smoking was having his dinner: bread and molasses extracted from sugarcane (called Assal = honey), which was a very popular dessert in Egypt. He was trying to fix the tobacco and then suddenly he realized that he could use the sticky molasses to give tobacco the required form. The process ended successfully, stabilizing the tobacco on the clay and providing the smoker with a distinguished flavor - and the new product was called  “Massell”.

    By the mid eighties, one of the Egyptian companies developed all massell sister products, with new specifications all aimed at decreasing the nicotine. They added paste of fruits that have strong exotic aromas, such as apple, melon and strawberry. The packing was also modernized to keep the flavour and aroma of the tobacco.      

    Shishas entered the Arab World when the Turks occupied the area. Since then it became an increasingly common scene in pavement cafés in Damascus, Cairo, Beirut, Jerusalem and many other cities. Behind the counter you would find nearly 60 shishas, most available to all, but some belonging to customers for whose exclusive use they are reserved. The older smokers would prefer the strong Syrian or Lebanese coastal tobaccos, most of which is well known to the world as Virginia tobacco, while many younger ones ask for aromatic apple or cherry blends imported from Egypt and Bahrain.

    It takes about an hour to smoke a shisha of fruit tobacco, two hours for the stronger stuff. The smoke is noticeably cooler than cigarette smoke, and lightly intoxicating. Before long, the water begins to turn brown and smokers say it is filtering out many of the harmful substances that they would otherwise be inhaling.

In days gone by (probably not totally gone by!), some smokers used to add to their shishas different illicit drugs. Sultans used to smoke a special mixture of opium, perfume and crushed pearls. At present, few smokers here and there add hashish and other drugs to their shishas.

    For shisha smokers, “the important thing is not what you put in the pipe, but who is with you while you're smoking,” as one of them put it. He continued. “In cafes, you find good people, old people, interesting people. As long as there is a need for company and friendship, as long as people want to stop and think, there will be shisha cafes.”

    Along the coastal sides of Arabia, people in small towns and fishing/pearling hamlets, used for almost two centuries to smoke a particular shisha made totally from clay they referred to in the UAE as “al kadou”. However, the shisha as we know it, was a specialty of Ramadan tents, and this continued for around 2 decades. By the mid nineties, shisha cafes opened everywhere, especially in Dubai, where their number at present is in the hundreds.

    Some of them have become very popular as they offer their guests a wide choice of tobaccos in addition to a variety of hot and cold drinks. A shisha costs between 5-7 Dirhams along Muttina Street and up to 50 Dirhams in classy cafes of 5 star hotels that started offering shisha to their customers to avoid losing them to the strong competition. In addition, there are now many shops that sell different types of shisha. A good shisha in Dubai would cost around Dh 200, but the price may be as cheap as 35 Dirhams or as expensive as 5.000 Dirhams!

    The advent of shisha and its wide spread did not go unnoticed. In some countries, official authorities took harsh measures to stop the habit. While Sharjah banned shisha cafes, the Egyptian Parliament will look soon into drafting a law that prohibits girls(!) from smoking shisha in public places, and imposing harsh fines ($200-1000, and one year in jail for second violation). Qatar stopped issuing new licenses for cafes, leaving only something like 40 shisha cafes in town, and banned smoking shisha in cafes along its Cornish. The city of Taef in KSA closed 135 shisha cafes, and allowed smoking shisha outside the city borders only.