Against Smoking: An Ottoman Manifesto (Hardback)

Edited, translated and with an Introduction by Yahya Michot

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 1600s. Several ulema soon realized the dangers of the new substance, among them Ahmad al-Rumi al-Aqhisari. His Epistle on Tobacco, one of the earliest texts against smoking written in Arabic, draws its arguments from the Qur'an, medicine, hadith and distrust towards the West. It is edited and translated for the first time into a European language.

Hardback

Extent: 108 pages