1 Introduction
Long used in the manufacturing of ropes and textiles as well as in medicine, it was only by the 7th/13th century that Arabic authors systematically began to document the growing consumption of the plant of cannabis for recreational purposes. The Egyptian historian al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442), for instance, relates that in 648/1250, the sultan al-Malik al-Muʿizz ʿIzz al-Dīn Aybak (d. 655/1257) levied taxes against the production and selling of hashish-based products (al-Maqrīzī, 1:105, 2:90). However, as far as the word hashish is concerned, the expression jamāʿat al-ḥashīshiyya, meaning “low-class rabble” and “irreligious social outcast,” appears already in the early 6th/12th-century defamatory campaign against the Nizari Ismaʿilis (Daftary, 92). It can therefore be assumed that hashish consumption in some circles dates back to the late Abbasid period.
This is also the period in which the plant of hemp received a more structured and systematic scientific treatment. Ibn Sīnā (370–427/980–1037), al-Bīrūnī (362–442/973–1050), and Ibn Jazla (d. 493/1100) provided detailed botanical descriptions of the wild as well as domestic hemp and listed its properties for the treatment of earaches and dandruff, for reliving flatulence, and reducing inflammation and swelling. However, the excessive consumption of hemp seeds, according to these authors, causes headaches, digestive troubles, and even infertility (Lozano Cámara, “El uso”).
From the 7th/13th century onward, following the growing spread of hemp as an intoxicant, physicians and jurists alike started discussing whether the kind of sensory stimulation produced by this plant was different from the effects induced by fermented drinks like wine. The botanist Ibn al-Bayṭār (d. 646/1248) was the first to assume that the hemp-based products produced intoxication (sukr). In his Summa (Jāmiʿ), he observes that some Sufis (fuqarāʾ) in Egypt, after consuming pills of hashish made of Indian hemp, a strong species of cannabis, “experience sudden excitement (yaṭrabūna) and great joy (yafraḥūna kathīran); maybe it [i.e., hashish] intoxicates them (yuskiruhum) until reaching the state of madness or [coming] very close to it” (Ibn al-Bayṭār, 4:39).
Drawing on Ibn al-Bayṭār’s scientific authority, some jurists came to declare hashish illegal. They based this view on the well-attested saying of the Prophet Muḥammad that “everything that intoxicates is khamr, and everything that is khamr is forbidden” (Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, k. al-ashriba 74; al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, k. al-adab 80), khamr being understood as wine made from the fermentation of uncooked grape juice. However, other experts reacted against this conclusion and claimed that, by virtue of its cold and dry nature, cannabis did not excite the senses like warm and moist substances such as wine, but rather caused drowsiness, a drop in vigilance, and a reduction in the ability to react.
An anecdote included in the Delight of the Souls in Hashish and Wine (Rāḥat al-arwāḥ fī l-ḥashīsh wa-l-rāḥ) (Marino, “Raconter,” 57–60), an anthology of texts on wine and hashish compiled by the Syrian-born littérateur (adīb) Taqī al-Dīn Abū l-Tūqā al-Badrī (847–94/1443–89), relates the story of an epileptic and melancholic member of the upper class in Baghdad, a certain Ẓahīr al-Dīn, who, after being treated with hashish and listening to music, recovers his senses (see below, § 1, translated by Danilo Marino). The attribution of the tale to al-Rāzī (d. 313/925) is anachronistic, given that the historic figures in the text lived some three centuries after the death of the physician of Rayy, but nevertheless seems credible. Al-Rāzī described epilepsy (ṣarʿ) at length in one of his works and also recommended the listening to music as an antidote to melancholia and grief (Isgandarova, 105). However, neither al-Rāzī nor any other physician mentioned the use of hemp for the treatment of mental or behavioral conditions. In fact, in this story it is not a physician healing Ẓahīr al-Dīn, which shows that the use of hashish confectionaries as remedy for this kind of diseases was an unconventional (though effective) therapy.
In the story, the musician ʿAlī b. Makkī (fl. 6th–7th/12th–13th centuries), the son of a poet at the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Nāṣir (r. 575–622/1180–1225) creates a reassuring atmosphere by singing poems accompanied by his lute, thereby preparing Ẓahīr al-Dīn for the intake of hashish. Instead of causing humoral disorder, mental confusion, or lethargy, as claimed by most of the juridical sources, the herb restores the balance between Ẓahīr al-Dīn’s body and soul to the extent that, when he feels the effects of hemp in all his senses, he suddenly regains full possession of himself and awareness of his condition (Lozano Cámara, Solaz, 84–5).
ʿAlī b. Makkī is also credited by al-Maqrīzī with composing a long poem on hashish (see below, § 2, translated by Franz Rosenthal), which is also included in the anthology of al-Badrī mentioned above. The poem is built around the synesthetic erotic encounter between the poet and hashish, personified as a beautiful bride dressed in green whose appearance stimulates all the senses and sometimes even takes ordinary sensory experience to a higher level. Like the beloved’s mouth and scent, hashish tastes like honey and has a musky fragrance. It is softer and smoother than the skin of a young and unmarried girl, a possible hint to the preference of hashish over wine, which is also commonly portrayed as a virgin. The poem states that hashish “makes music superfluous”— maybe a reference to the fact that the repetition of two shīns makes listening to the name ḥashīsh (which does not appear in the poem) enjoyable, or to the fact that nobody has ever heard about hashish’s stimulating effects before. The poem also describes the visual properties of the plant and in particular its colors, ranging from the deep brownish red of its high stems to the intense green of the leaves, the symbolism of which is often exploited by poets writing verses on hashish (Marino, “Le plaisir”). The concluding lines, where hashish is said to be of “Indian origin,” refers to the legend according to which a certain Shaykh Pīr Ranṭan from Bengal was the first to note that eating hashish reduces anxiety and sorrow and increases joyfulness and pleasure (al-Maqrīzī, 2:127; al-Badrī, fols. 4a, 5a [MS Paris], fols. 57a, 57b [MS Damascus]).
References
al-Badrī, Taqī al-Dīn Abū l-Tuqā, Rāḥat al-arwāḥ fī l-ḥashīsh wa-l-rāḥ, MS Ar. 3544, Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France = MS majmūʿ 210, 7855, Damascus: Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyya.
Daftary, Farhad, The Assassin Legends: Myths of Ismaʿilis, London-New York: I. B. Tauris, 1994.
Fischer, Wolfdietrich, Farb- und Formbezeichnungen in der Sprache der altarabischen Dichtung, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965.
Ibn al-Bayṭār, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad al-Dīn, Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya, 4 vols., Bulaq: Maktabat al-ʿĀmira, 1874.
Isgandarova, Nazila, “Music in Islamic Spiritual Care: A Review of Classical Sources,” Religious Studies and Theology 34.1 (2015), pp. 101–114.
Lozano Cámara, Indalecio, “El uso terapéutico del Cannabis sativa L. en la medicina árabe,” Asclepio 49.2 (1997), pp. 199–208.
Lozano Cámara, Indalecio, Solaz del espíritu en el hachís y el vino y otros textos árabes sobre drogas, Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 1998.
al-Maqrīzī, Taqī l-Dīn Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Qādir, Kitāb al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār bi-dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār, 2 vols., Bulaq, 1270, republ. Beirut: Dār al-Ṣādir, 1970.
Marino, Danilo, “Raconter l’ivresse à l’époque mamelouke. Les mangeurs de haschich comme motif littéraire,” Annales islamologiques 49 (2015), pp. 55–80.
Marino, Danilo, “Le plaisir de l’ivresse. Haschich et littérature homoérotique à l’époque mamelouke,” in Les mots du désir. La langue de l’érotisme arabe et sa traduction, ed. Frédéric Lagrange and Claire Savina, Marseille: Diacritiques Éditions, 2020, pp. 289–325.
Rosenthal, Franz, The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society, Leiden: Brill, 1971, republ. in Man versus Society in Medieval Islam, ed. Dimitri Gutas, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2014, pp. 131–4.
2 Translation
Taqī l-Dīn Abū l-Tuqā al-Badrī, Rāḥat al-arwāḥ fī l-ḥashīsh wa-l-rāḥ, MS Ar. 3544, Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fols. 5a [text 2], 7b–8a [text 1] = MS majmūʿ 210, 7855, Damascus: Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyya, fols. 57b [text 2], 59a–59b [text 1].
[§ 1. Music and Hashish Restoring Sense]
Among the most wonderful stories about the properties of hashish that has attracted my attention is the one narrated by the great scholar Muḥammad b. Zakariyyā al-Rāzī in his work called The Mansurian (al-Manṣūrī), a book well known for its benefits and excellent composition. In the article about the treatment of epilepsy, he says: because of its inner properties, the leaves of the domestic hemp plant (shahdānaj) immediately relieve [the symptoms of] epilepsy. Proof of the soundness of this is provided by what happened during my time to Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al-Wakīl. He was member of one of the most powerful families in Baghdad; his father was chamberlain of the Caliphal Council under the vizierates of Ibn al-ʿAlqamī and Ibn Nāqid in the time of the Abbasid state. Ẓahīr had an excess of black bile (al-sawdāʾ) that caused him this disease [epilepsy]. Because he was biting his thumbs so hard that he almost severed them, he was chained and locked in his home. He used to suffer from one seizure per week and for almost six months doctors tried to treat him without success.
Then he received the visit of ʿAlī b. Makkī, who was one of the most skilled players of luth and tambourine in his time as well as a composer of excellent poetry, as the masters of the arts confirmed. His father was also a poet during the reign of al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh and Ibn Makkī was one of his chamberlains. He talked to the afflicted Ẓahīr al-Dīn to distract him and suddenly he started singing and, while still on chains because of his illness, this melody moved him. When Ibn Makkī noticed that, he brought something made of hashish out of his sleeve and, without splitting it, he took [one piece] and offered [the rest] to Ẓahīr al-Dīn. He first refused because he had never eaten it before, but then, Ibn Makkī, with his polite and elegant manners, kept delighting him with his unbridled verses and gradually convinced him to eat the hashish. So, Ibn Makkī played again the luth and the tambourine and sang delicate poems and after not even an hour Ẓahīr al-Dīn felt the effect of hashish in his soul and his senses. He regained his right mind and blamed his family for showing no consideration for the misery of his state.
From this day, which was also when he was having his [weekly] seizure, he was cured from the disease, and nobody found a reason for the end of the disease other than the eating of hashish. From this day on, Ẓahīr al-Dīn never stopped taking this herb. I think that this was an extraordinary event and an amazing and refined tale.
[§ 2. Ode to Hashish1]
The translation and the explanatory footnotes are by Franz Rosenthal (Rosenthal, pp. 152–3 [republ. ed., pp. 287–8]), based on the text as it appears in al-Maqrīzī, 2:127.
This refers to the silvery and golden glow on the plant when it is covered with dew in the morning sunlight.
“Light” seems more likely to be meant than “blossom.”
The verse is missing from al-Maqrīzī but found in al-Badrī: wa-fīhā ghinan bi-l-massi ʿan khurradi sitrin / wa-fī dhikrihā li-s-samʿi mughnin ʿan-i-zamri. It clearly belongs to the original poem.
For the old Arabian color spectrum, cf. Fischer, 237, passim.
Al-Badrī: “and protect the army of fun.” The “army” of worry is a common metaphor in hashish poetry.
Al-Badrī: “and greenness (?)” (wa-l-khuḍri).