Un peu d'histoire          L'art de l'objet          Dans la littérature

Des origines incertaines

On peut fixer l'usage social du narguilé, à grande échelle, comme simultané avec l'apparition du café public et l'adoption du tabac. Aujourd'hui, les hypothèses retenues ici en raison de leur pertinence lui attribuent une origine sud-africaine, éthiopienne ou persane. Une origine européenne est également mise en avant par des historiens du tabac. Ces derniers considèrent que le narguilé serait une forme adoptée par la pipe américaine dans le bassin méditerranéen, en Afrique ou en Asie, après la diffusion de cette dernière par les Européens aux seizième et dix-septième siècles.

Les pipes à eau et les drogues

Une autre version affirme au contraire que le narguilé et autres pipes à eau furent d'abord inventé pour fumer le hashish et l'opium. La preuve en est l'utilisation courante du "bong" chez les fumeurs de cannabis...

D'origine indienne, où il était fait à partir d'une noix de coco, d'où vient son nom originel narçil, le narguilé a été adopté par les Chinois qui l'utilisèrent pour fumer l'opium dans leurs fameuses pipes à eau. Par la suite, les Perses, puis les différents pays arabes, et enfin les Turcs l'ont adopté et transformé jusqu'à lui donner sa forme actuelle.

It is important to note and as part of Hookah history, that Turkey revolutionized Hookah smoking and today it is a very important part of the coffee shop culture. For centuries, even around the time of Murat the IV, 1623-40, Hookah smoking was popular and remains so. (traduction en cours)

Le narguilé porte de nombreux noms à travers les pays : hookah (Turquie), hooka, huka, shisha, sheesha, shishah (Tunisie, Egypte), nargile, narghile, et Hubbly Bubbly. Le terme narguilé lui-même est d'origine persane.

(la traduction d'un long article turc sur les origines du narguilé et ses liens avec l'usage de substances "stupéfiantes" est en cours : )

Born in India, the narghile spread to the countries of the Near East, East Asia, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, North and East Africa, and all the way to the Ottomans. In each country it has been subjected to various changes, and finally assumed its present form. Called various names in each country where it is employed, the term is in fact of Persian origin.

Since very early times, the Indians have been raising hemp and employing such plants as medicines. Originally only its seed was used to obtain cannabis oil, but with time, the qualities of the plant's leaves were discovered and they were exploited in the production of intoxicants, thus leading to the discovery of hashish.

Thus drug was originally employed as a powerful anaesthetic, but with the admixture of other plants and spices, a sort of paste was produced and by eating it they made it a pleasure and habit to delve into a dream world. Not being satisfied with this, they attempted to obtain the drug in its pure form, for which purpose they felt the need for various devices. It was the narghile which arose as the natural result of those desires.

The precursor of the narghile is the narcil, a type of coconut which grows commonly in India. The inner meat of this nut was removed and the shell was pierced, following which a straw was placed inside, the resulting "device" being the first simple form of the modern narghile. It was from the name of this nut that this primitive device was also called narcil.

Subsequently the device reached Egypt by various routes where its form was somewhat changed. For example, the body was made from a gourd rather than from a coconut shell.

Although the name narcil was still adopted, owing to differences in pronunciation the /ç/ sound was read as a/g/ and thus the word became entrenched as nargile, or narghile.

The Persians saw this device and liked it, and they developed it even further, adding a number of parts. The body, which originally consisted of a coconut shell and then a gourd, they made into a porcelain flask, and instead of the straw, they added a soft and flexible part which resembled a hose and which was mucn more practical. They called this part marpic, which in Persian means "snake coil."

Around that time, tobacco was discovered and with the beginning of its use as an intoxicant, the Persians experimented with the substance. For this purpose, they developed a tray to be placed above the body which would hold the tobacco. Made of bronze to ensure its strength, this tray was given the name ser, which means "head". It was also the Persians who first made use of the type of tobacco known as tömbeki.

The Arabs also made use of the narghile. Nevertheless, they employed it in its primitive form, which is to say, using the coconut shell. Narghiles with bodies of coconut shell, long wooden heads, set on iron stands and with hoses sewn from thick cloth were in use in Syria and the Yemen.

The arrival of the narghile among the Ottomans took place at quite a late stage. Although there is no specific date indicated, it would be correct to state that it was used after the introduction of tobacco into the country. At this point I believe there is value in taking a look at the establishment of coffee houses in our country.

There were no coffee houses among the Ottomans until the reign of Sultan Süleyman the Lawgiver. We learn from the history of Peçevi that one was first opened in 1554. According to this history, someone by the name of Hakem from Aleppo and a nobleman by the name of _ems from Damascus opened a shop at "Tahtelkale" (modern Tahtakale, presently a commercial district of Istanbul), thus laying the foundations for the first coffee houses. Initially places frequented by people referred to as the "rabble," coffee houses subsequently became places where doctors of law, theologians, and the upper classes met and talked while drinking coffee. With time, the quality of these places fell and became increasingly degenerate, and being regarded as haunts of idlers, they were subjected to vigorous prohibition during the reign of Murat III.

This prohibition continued up until the reign of Mehmet III, but since people could not be prevented from attending such places, even if only in secret, the prohibition was abolished at the end of his reign. It was during these years that tobacco entered the country. Tobacco, arriving from England in ships, was first sold as a drug, but with the subsequent discovery of its intoxicating properties, it began to be used exclusively for that purpose, since its consumption that way was more enjoyable. Thus, on the basis of all these facts, it would not be wrong to state that the use of narghiles took place in the 17^th Century.

The Ottomans made narghiles according to their own tastes, and made them more useable. For example, above the "head" they placed a bowl the "head" they placed a bowl of baked clay and they added a mouthpiece to the portion of the hose which entered the mouth. The body they made of glass, crystal, rock-crystal, porcelain and even silver. To the heads, which they made of brass and silver, they added a pipe holder which were decorated at their extremities with plant motifs and carvings.

There were considerable differences in terms of manufacture and decoration between the narghiles employed by the ordinary people (the "commoners") and by the upper classes (the "greats"). In particular, the jewelled narghiles decorated with precious stones and manufactured to order for the palace are worthy of acclaim.

The narghiles used among the people were quite plain, while some were manufactured with two or three hoses and used by several people simultaneously.

For the date of use of narghiles, whose employment began during the Ottoman period, it will be helpful to mention the entry into the country of glass, on account of the use of that material in the bodies. Glass gained particular value and great developments took place in the glass industry in the 16^th to 18^th Centuries. Indeed, the renown of glassware manufactured in Istanbul extended outside the borders of the country.

Glassmaking assumed the aspect of a branch of the arts during the reign of Murat II, and during the reign of Mustafa III, it was taken under the protection of the Palace. Nevertheless, since crysatl could not be obtained by chemical means in our country during this period, all the valuable Palace glassware of the time was made to order in Bohemia.

Towards the end of the 18^th Century, the manner of obtaining cut crystal by chemical means was discovered. Thanks to craftsmen who were brought from abroad beginning with the reign of Mahmut I, its manufacture in our country began and crystal were of great beauty and desbign was produced.

During the reign of Selim III during the 19^th Century, a Mevlevi by the name of Mehmet Dede set up a workshop in Beykoz, a place where the famous Beykoz glassware was made. Though following these workshops, which from time to time ceased activity and from time to time were open under the protection of the Padishahs, a glass factory was established at Pa_abahçe in 1899 by a Jew by the name of Saul Modiani, it was unable to compete with the glassware being then imported from Europe and halted production. The first glass factory in the modern sense was established at Pa_abahçe on the orders of Atatürk in 1934 during the Republic period. The most beautiful of the narghiles used during the ottoman period were those made at the Beykoz workshops.

To give a complete definition of a narghile, one could say that it was a device which permitted the smoking of a type of tobacco known as tömbeki by means of eliminating excess nicotine by passing the smoke through water. Tömbeki or Persian tobacco, is a type originating in Iran and which is used only in narghiles. The leaves and stalks of this tobacco are picked together, and after being subjected to special processing is made usable. Tömbekiis not chopped like tobacco, but is broken up by hand. A good quality of tömbeki was at one time grown in our country in the regions of Hatay and Konya.

sources : http://www.sacrednarghile.com
Antika, The Turkish Journal of Collectable Art, Février 1986 N° 11, Günay Gercek