Against Smoking: An Ottoman Manifesto, Hardback, ISBN: 9781847740205, Author: Ahmad Al-Aqhisari, Editor: Yahya Michot.
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
