A hookah or ḡalyān (Persian: قلیان Urdu: حقّہ (Nastaleeq), IPA: [ˌɦʊqqaː]; also see other names) is a single or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored tobacco (called Mu‘assel), or sometimes cannabis or hashish, whose 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.
There are two theories regarding the origin of the hookah. The first is that it originates in Safavid dynasty of Persia...