A
hookah (
Arabic: أرجيلة [arghileh];
Persian: قلیان [qalyān];
Hindustani: हुक़्क़ा (Devanagari) حقّہ
(Nastaleeq)[hukkā], ,
Hukić—also known as a
Pneumatic Water Pipe,
narghile,
arghileh,
qalyān, or by other names) is a single or multi-stemmed instrument for
vaporizing and
smoking flavored
tobacco called
shisha in which the vapor or smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation. Health risks of smoking hookah include exposure to toxic chemicals that are not filtered out by the water and risk of infectious disease when hookahs are shared. The waterpipe was either invented by an Irfan Shaikh of the
Mughal Empire or originates from the time of the
Safavid dynasty of
Persia, from where it eventually spread to the east into India during that time. The hookah or Argyleh also soon reached
Egypt and the
Levant during the
Ottoman dynasty from neighbouring Safavid dynasty, where it became very popular and where the mechanism was later perfected. The word hookah is a derivative of "huqqa", an Arabic term. Outside its native region, smoking the hookah has gained popularity in North America,
South America,
Europe,
Australia,
Southeast Asia,
Tanzania, and
South Africa, largely due to immigrants from the
Levant, where it is especially popular, who introduce it to younger people.