Against Smoking
An Ottoman Manifesto
Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Aqḥiṣārī
(d. 1041/1631 or 1043/1634)
Against Smoking
An Ottoman Manifesto
Introduction, Editio Princeps and Translation
by
YAHYA MICHOT
Foreword by
MOHAMMAD AKRAM NADWI
Interface Publications – Kube Publishing
1431/2010
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS
Front: Young smoker. Detail of a bowl, Turkey, 11th/17th c. (Brussels, Musée du Cinquantenaire).
Back: Turkish coffee-house (J. Ludwigsohn, Constantinople, c. 1900).
Published in England by Kube Publishing Ltd. and Interface Publications Ltd.
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ISBN: 978-1-84774-020-5 casebound
A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library.
Contents
Foreword by Mohammad Akram Nadwi
A Forgotten Puritan from Anatolia
The Complexities of a Radical Pietism
How to Turn Down an English Present
Recycling One’s Own Writings
“Cheating about the Religion of God…”
Translation
Edition
Appendix
Bibliography
Indexes
Qur’ānic Verses
Ḥadīths of the Prophet
Geographical Terms
Persons, Groups, Doctrines
Keywords and Concepts
Transcribed Words
SOME eat a sort of opium called benghilik, or henebane, which renders them more or less stupid and entertains them with the different visions that their mind, muddled by these vapours, presents to them; just as those who smoke tobacco may, in their melancholy, draw some satisfaction from the variety of clouds and figures that smoke creates in the air when it comes out of their pipes.
Albertus Bobovius (‘Alī
Ufkī Bey), Topkapi, p. 136 (c. 1665)
Ottoman basmala (13th/19th c.)
Tobacco, flower and fruit (from Larousse du XXe siècle)
A Baqtāsh darvish inhaling hashīsh (from J. P. Brown, Dervishes, p. 342)
Smokers playing chess (from C. de Bruyn, Voyages, 1732)
Ghazī Hasan Bābā (from J. P. Brown, Dervishes, p. 289)
Title pages of S. B. al-Shikārpūrī, Khazīna (Delhi, 1283[/1866] and pseudo-Shāh Walīullāh, al-Balāgh al-mubīn (India, 13th/19th c.)
First page of the Risāleh dukhāniyyeh.
