Against Smoking. An Ottoman Manifesto

£7.99

Estimating delivery

Against Smoking. An Ottoman Manifesto

A fascinating cultural history of the Ottoman response to tobacco, which includes one of the earliest fatwas on the subject.

"Michot provides an introduction into the work (Risaleh Dukhaniyyeh) and an outline of the scholarly debates concerning smoking that occured in Turkey in the 16th and 17th centuries." Islamic Horizons

"Against Smoking is a gem of scholarship. This compact book is a major contribution to the study of Islamic pietism in general and Ottoman religious and cultural history in particular." Professor Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Washington University in St. Louis

One of the earliest Arabic texts against smoking, Ahmad al-Aqhisari's Epistle on Tobacco is presented here for the first time in a scholarly edition, together with a fully annotated English translation. Yahya Michot expertly sets the epistle within its Ottoman social, intellectual, and historical context. Includes thirty illustrations.

Ottomans initiated the West to the pleasures of opium, coffee and tulips. For their reward, they got literally smoked by Europeans, who started exporting tobacco to Turkey in the early 1600. This book is the first English language translation of the original Arabic critical edition, presented in a scholarly edition, with arguments drawn on the Quran, hadith, medicine and distrust towards the West.

Additional Product Information

Yahya Michot

Yahya Michot is professor of Islamic studies and ChristianMuslim relations at Hartford Seminary, Connecticut.

Ahmad al-Rumi Al-Aqhisari:

Ahmad al-Rumi Al-Aqhisari: (d. 1041) was a reformer and scholar from Anatolia, largely forgotten in his own country, but whose influence can be traced as far away as India in the 19th century.

Yahya Michot: Yahya Michot lectured at Louvain and from 1998 to 2008, taught Islamic theology at the University of Oxford. He is now professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary (Connecticut). He devoted earlier books to cannabis and Sufism in Mamluk Egypt (2001), and to opium and coffee in Ottoman Turkey (2008).