Tobacco in the Ottoman Empire

How addiction transformed a culture in the 17th century

Frederick Drusenthal, 5128741

Dr. Javier Francisco: Decline in Bio-Cultural Diversity; How European Empires transformed
the World in the Early Modern Age
WS21/22
06.03.22
Introduction
The early modern period is an era of vast global changes, mostly introduced by European
Empires and their expansion via colonisation. These radical developments changed how
financial systems work, how commodities are produced and distributed, and what (urban)
cultures looked like. Those mechanisms relied mainly on social and ecological exploitation
and made their way to the whole world, in which it had long-lasting effects on societies and
systems.
We are now used to the commodities that the Americas provide us with, including
alimentation and other goods. In this Essay, I will focus on tobacco which also has its roots in
North and South America and was brought to the rest of the world by European merchants.
Over the next centuries, nearly everywhere smoking would become accepted as a social
practice. Few people now would dream of condemning it as a moral scourge, or of banishing
it from the streets.
This was not always the case. Throughout the history of Christian culture, there have been
many disputes regarding nowadays provenly cancer-evoking tobacco products (WHO, 2021).
The Ottoman Empire faced a similar situation upon their confrontation with the newly
acquired good which found vast popularity among its population.
A series of moral, religious, and political debates and actions shaped how the commodity was
integrated into the culture of an Empire reaching all the way from North Africa, over the
Middle East up until what nowadays is Greece and the Balkan.
Throughout this Essay I will argue that through the implementation of tobacco smoking into
public discourse in the Ottoman Empire, first developments of an “early modern” consumer
culture can be found. Although distinct to many of the developments which other areas in the
time faced, it was nevertheless influenced more my European culture at the time than
imagined before.
I aim at transcending this term of an “early modern culture” to the Ottoman Empire, where the
term was not formed but nevertheless had its impacts. This will be done by a case study
investigating the history of tobacco consumption in the Ottoman Empire throughout the 17th
century.

Micro-Perspective
The implementation of tobacco into Middle Eastern consumer culture is relatively well
documented, as it caused heated debates and religious arguments to stir up the ever-evolving
pot of global cultural influences during the early modern period.
In his detailed and well-argued essay, Grehan (2005) shows the spread of Tobacco in the
Ottoman Empire and the cultural disputes that followed it throughout his work.
He claims that tobacco was (most likely) first introduced to the Eastern Mediterranean region
in the beginning of the 17th century by European physicians who have brought it from the
Americas and praised it as a universal healing plant (p.1354).
Soon after, it rapidly developed towards becoming a widely appreciated pastime, along coffee
and tea, which were the new goods brought to the world by Europeans from their American
colonies.
Marl’l bin Yusuf al-Karmi (1623/24), a Palestinian scholar from the time already wrote that
tobacco was smoked openly in “gathering places of the people, like the markets and streets”.
In the following time, the number of smokers multiplied exponentially and by 1700, the
Ottoman Empire produced most of its tobacco in its own peripheral regions and prices
steadily declined while demand grew (p.1355).
Smoking would soon become the most affordable public diversion of the Ottoman Empire’s
urban and later also rural population.
The Damascene jurist ‘Abd1 al-Ghani al-Nabusi (1682) commented that “tobacco has now
become extremely famous in all the countries of Islam […] People of all kinds have used it
and devoted themselves to it […] I have seen even young children of about five years
applying themselves to it”.
This rapid development did not go unnoticed by religious and state authorities and led to
many moral and legal disputes, but how could it spread so quickly?

First, it can be noticed that the usage via Pipe was very convenient for the ordinary people. It
was cheap, easy to get and easy to transport, and thus found its way into consumer culture
very easily. The main alternative, namely the Waterpipe (Hookah) coming from India, was
more complicated to use and got adapted rather “for the most relaxed venues, such as the
coffeehouse or bathhouse” (p.1356).
Second, nicotine, the main compound of tobacco, is a highly addictive substance and effects
of addiction shaped the spread of the commodity frequently.
Nowadays, an immense amount of negative health-impairing side effects are known
additionally, but these played little to no role in the beginning of tobacco consumption and
were only discovered when wide parts of the population were already addicted (WHO, 2021).

1
The title ‘Abd signifies the name Abdallah, meaning “servant of God”. It is often combined as a genitive with
one of the 99 names of God. The scholars cited throughout this essay with this prename have all been working
in a religious context.
Despite the immediate popularity, the integration of tobacco into mainstream culture was not
without difficulties. The main challenges with its implementation were posed by
moral/religious and legal controversies. Much criticism came from religious and political
authorities, which was rooted deeply within the earlier confrontations regarding coffee as a
new popularly consumed commodity with foreign, or rather European, roots. Although it “did
not accompany immoral activities or in any way impede religious obligations” per sé, it still
catalysed large scholarly debates based on different argumentative reasons (p. 1358).

Those arguing against it mostly built their argumentation on the analogy to wine, which the
Qu’ran and Islamic law had traditionally forbidden. Further, negative effects on the health like
physical vigor, bad breath, and general hygienic degeneration are often mentioned throughout
Islamic scholars’ statements, as those are matters which in Islamic law are considered as
khaba’ith2 (p.1360).
Surprisingly, the notions of tobacco being harmful to the spirit occur way more frequently
than those claiming tobacco harmful for physical health. “Writings, which lead into the recess
of the social imagination, treated tobacco as deeply menacing to spirit and character, far
beyond any threat posed to physical health” (p.1361). This suspicious attitude towards
innovations stems from a long history of religious anxiety of impurity.
In its most extravagant visions, Muslim leaders (ulamas) even claimed moral ramifications for
the afterlife of the tobacco consumer, as the symbols of “fire and smoke” were often seen as
“conjuring up a hellfire and eternal damnation” (p.1361).

What was even more prominent throughout the criticism against the new habit of smoking,
was its linking with the unease felt towards Christian Europe. The strongly developing and
powerful Atlantic trade of the European Empires, which brought smoking to the Arabic
World, posed a potential threat to the perseverance of the Ottoman Empire’s culture.
Most famously, Ibrahim al-Lagani (d.1631/32), an Egyptian scholar, viewed tobacco as a kind
of Christian plot against Islam, claiming that the tobacco was trenched in wine and pork meat
to make Muslims fail their own principles unconsciously.

2
“the khabā’ith are those things which one detests, due to their ugly and disgusting nature and therefore
anything that fits into this description will be prohibited to eat. On the contrary, ṭayyib are things which one
finds nice, pure and pleasant, and these things are ḥalāl to eat.” Source: https://www.iqraonline.net/principle-
of-prohibition-khabaith-permissibility-tayyibat/
To summarize it, a “circulation of wild rumors […] reveal[ed] subtle cultural tensions that
smoking would provoke throughout the Ottoman Middle East” (p.1362). This fear of cultural
adaption continued to play a large role of what can now be claimed early signs of an early
modern culture, which held place in the Ottoman Empire throughout the 17th century and did
not go unnoticed.

The political and religious authorities joined this opposition early on in order to maintain the
system and its power structures. Ahmed I. (r. 1603-1617) outlawed the sale of tobacco in
1611. It showed largely unefficient as people were still executing the habit broadly.
Nevertheless, afterwards the religiously led “war on tobacco” would not be revived for
another two decades, in which not many measures were taken, and smoking was picked up
further into consumer culture (p.1362).
22 years later, under the Istanbul-based Kadizadeli movement3, smoking became a capital
offense in 1633. The Sultan Murad IV (r.1623-1640) became involved, and smokers were
executed on sight when caught.
The official legitimization for this was that smokers posed a harmful risk by evoking fires
throughout the cities mostly constructed of wood.

The fears of shifts in consumption and sociability, potentially undermining long-standing

social hierarchies become most clear in this aspect of top-down prohibition. As a diverse
cross-section of Istanbul society, including everyone from state officials to those unemployed
and idle “was now rubbing shoulders in close and unaccustomed quarters” due to the
sociability of smoking in coffeehouses and bathhouses, the religious elites feared a revolution
in social order (p.1364).
But this cannot be solely attributed to tobacco. The relapse of social and moral confusion
occurred whenever new patterns of consumption expanded to wider social groups.
Coffee and tea played similar roles and elicited the same kind of joyous behavior within the
urban population, going hand in hand with smoking and activities of “enjoyment” rather than
deed.

At the heart of the debate was always the Principle of Prohibition of Khabā’ith and
Permissibility of Ṭayyibāt (Taḥrīm al-Khabā’ith wa Ḥillīyyah al-Ṭayyibāt)4. This is a long
3
Movement of salafist islamic fundamentalism. For further information see:
https://academic.oup.com/jis/article/26/3/265/709610
4
Qu’ran: „[7:157] —those who follow the Apostle, the uninstructed prophet, whose mention they find written
with them in the Torah and the Evangel, who bids them to do what is right and forbids them from what is
tradition within Islamic law that requires believers to “enjoin the right and forbid the wrong”.
Definitions of these terms and prescriptions for holding these ideals were always matter of
long debate and never reached conclusion or consent but rather initiated most wide-reaching
wars within Islam.

Throughout the 17th century, the debate regarding the consumption of tobacco was largely
shaped by the consumption patterns of the religious authorities and scholars in jurisprudence.
For example, Abd’ al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, who later in 1682 penned one of the most important
treatises on tobacco transformed from claiming not to be a smoker to openly enjoying it in the
time of debate.
Others, like the Palestinian scholar Mar’l al-Karmi (d.1623/1624) regarded tobacco as
reluctant but found little reason for outlawing it
The biggest controversy was that even the Sultan’s own army had a flourishing tobacco
consumption during the anti-tobacco persecutions in the mid-17th century.
“This complicity of members of the social and religious elite, who appreciated tobacco no less
than other subjects of the Sultan made official pressure harder to organize and sustain”
(p.1368). Due to this and many other precedence cases, the central state soon gave up tobacco
prohibition by 1650 and formally legalized it again.
Thus, we cannot simply assume that the “ultra-pious were able to pose as the guardians of
morality without facing popular skepticism and resentment” (p.1369). The debates regarding
freedom of joyous behavior found their roots in these commodities but were brought to all
other areas of civil life.

The most famous and forceful critique of intolerant conservatism was the formerly mentioned
religious scholar Abd’ al-Ghani al-Nabusi. His 1682 treaty declared tobacco consumption
fully legal in the Ottoman Empire by diminishing positions he regarded as excessive
eagerness of moral purists. As the Sultanic law derived its legitimacy from the guidance of
Islamic law, he argues that only the Ulamas5 should be able to decide upon the legislation of
commodities if they evoke rigid debate (p.1370).

wrong, makes lawful to them all the good things and forbids them from all vicious things, and relieves them
of their burdens and the shackles that were upon them —those who believe in him, honour him, and help him
and follow the light that has been sent down with him, they are the felicitous.’”

5
Religious leaders in Islamic communities
This later reshaped the relationship between “innovation”, only impermissible if it regarded
religious foundations, and “custom”, not harmful if conforming to Islamic law and custom in
the Ottoman Empire and Muslim world.

Here we can draw the connection of “early modern” culture, a predominantly European term,
to Islamic culture in the 17th century. Abd’ al-Ghani al-Nabusi “credited the Europeans with
great knowledge in such “ancient sciences” as medicine, engineering, and astronomy. If
Muslims wanted to use such expertise, which had no bearing on the Islamic religious
sciences, they faced no restrictions” (p.1371).
Only very few Europeans were at the cities of the Ottoman Empire at the time, but the ideas
that nevertheless got transmitted from culture to culture, also in the debate about tobacco,
often proved quite valuable. In matters outside of religion especially scholars started to listen
to and learn from each other what they could.
“In this receptivity […] we can perhaps catch a glimpse […] of an “early modern”
Mediterranean culture, where ethic and religious boundaries were more porous, blurry, and
unstable than we are used to assuming” (p.1371).

A new cultural sentiment of liberation and division took place in the cities of the Eastern
Mediterranean towards the end of the 17th century, and the virtue of “taking pleasure from this
world” was implemented into the way of living more broadly (p.1372).
This acceptance of smoking, in combination with drinking coffee could be understood as the
extension of a new kind of sociability. The coffeehouses became incomparable social
gathering spots in many early Middle Eastern towns such as Istanbul, Damascus or
Alexandria. Further, they “emerged as the main bastion of a public culture of fun that had not
previously existed” (p.1375). Tobacco broadened and furthered this public culture of fun, as it
was not limited only to the coffeehouses but was convenient in use and easily portable
everywhere the people went.

In the end, political and religious authorities had to bow down to “these powerful attitudes
that seemed to dwell up from the depths of culture”, and smoking became deeply rooted in the
new form of “early modern” Islamic sociability (p.1377). Exactly this unhindered desire for
pleasure and distraction is what later would become one of the hallmarks of modern culture
and found its root in the Ottoman Empire throughout the long disputes and fights about the
reformation of public behavior throughout the 17th century.
All in all, it can be said that: “Tobacco was a key factor in the breakdown of old moral
strictures and helped to frame a distinctively early modern culture in which the pursuit of
pleasure was thereafter more public, routine, and unfettered” (p.1377).

Historical Background and Macro-Perspective

The tobacco plant has its origins in North and South America, where it grows under certain
warm and humid climatic circumstances. It is today believed that the native American
population has used it since 6.000 B.C. for various religious and spiritual purposes6, where it
has gotten its ancient reputation of a relaxing and mind-enhancing activity (Randall, 1999).
It was believed to be a cure-all, and negative long-term effects of its consumption were never
put into correlation with the consumption itself. Rather, it was told that it could cure things
such as wounds, toothache, or any other kind of pathological situation.

The two species of the plant, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, are still grown today.
Commercially used tobacco almost always stems from the latter plant, which before fifteenth
century nobody outside the American continent knew about (Goodman, 1994).

On October 15, 1492, Christopher Columbus was given dried tobacco leaves as a gift from
native Americans he encountered upon his arrival (Grehan, 2005). This shows the spiritual
and medicinal value it had to the natives as they tried portraying their generosity with this
gesture. It can be supposed that he first remained ignorant of its use, but two months later two
of his crew remembers allegedly reported seeing native Americans smoking the plant in the
interior of Cuba (Goodman, 1994). Later, other sailors following the roots that Columbus has
established made further encounter with the plant and its supposed attributions. This was the
beginning of a long series of encounters between Europeans and Native Americans where the
two large cultures exchanged, and the habit of smoking tobacco was transmitted.
Soon after, some sailors picked up on the habit who then brought it to Europe.

Probably not until the 1570’s tobacco began to grow its roots in consumption behavior outside
of North and South America, mostly in Europe, and the people picked it up very fast
(Goodman, 1994).

6
See for example the Metsé ritual of the Cuicuru Indians in central Brazil
Already by the end of the 16th century, tobacco consumption became a popular addiction in
England, Holland, and Spain, which were the most powerful transatlantic colonial empires at
the time.
In the next centuries then it would spread widely through the rest of Europe and the
consumption became more popular then ever.
The cultivation of the plant then also was adapted throughout Europe to provide the
population’s own demand of the plant that was implemented into modern sociability very fast.
Randall (1999) argues that the main reason for this fast and not well reflected implementation
was still due to its supposed medicinal functions. It was popular thought at the time that it
could cure anything from bad breath to, ironically, cancer.

In 1571, a Spanish doctor named Nicolas Monardes published a book about the history of
medicinal plants of the New World, in which Tobacco was highly praised. He attributed to it a
total sum of 36 illnesses that could be cured with the use of the nicotine-rich plant.
In 1588, A Virginian named Thomas Harriet promoted smoking tobacco as a viable way to
get one's daily dose of tobacco. Unfortunately, he died of nose cancer, as it was popular then
to breathe the smoke out through the nose (Randall, 1999).
Until the end of the 16th century, tobacco remained much in the focus of physicians, botanists
and herbalists and had little to no influence on modern consumer culture (Goodman, 1994).

Throughout the 17th century then, especially in the tobacco growing colonies itself where
there was not much supply of silver and gold, the dried leaves themselves were used as
currency. “Dominating the Viriginia economy after 1622, tobacco remained the staple of the
Chesapeake colonies, and its phenomenal rise is one of the most remarkable aspects of […]
colonial history” (Borio, 2017). This made tobacco a kind of pre-modern commodity, as it
was much more connected to the commercial than to the industrial system, and was crucial for
the maintenance of economic system in the New World (Goodman, 1994).

Nevertheless, snuffing7 and smoking later became the most popular way in which tobacco was
consumed thoughout Europe and its Empires, which had rather recreational than medicinal
purposes, making many historians claim that tobacco belonged to the class of goods which

7
Inhaling unburnt tobacco through your nose
belonged to the first upcoming of an early modern consumer culture in European Empires
(Goodman, 1994).

Throughout other parts of the World, especially Southeast Asia, tobacco also reached wide
favors throughout the wider population, and during the 17th century countries like China or
India embraced the consumption culturally on wide scales. The devotion to the Nicotiana
plant got so high so quickly that many countries started growing tobacco on the large scale to
supply their demand. Until today, countries like China or India grow huge amounts of tobacco
and gain a big share of the tobacco market through processing and export of the addictive
commodity (Grehan, 2004; Manohar, 1999; Suzuki, 2001).

Conclusion

In summary it can be said that tobacco, alongside coffee and tea, had a huge influence on
cultural dynamics in the Ottoman Empire during the 17th century.
It was one of the first long-lasting acculturations that superseded and transcended cultural
boundaries that were before considered ubiquitous and God-given order.
Although initial skepticism from political and religious pious elites was frequent, the ordinary
people of the cities and later also the rural areas accepted and implemented tobacco rapidly
into their consumption behavior, which did not remain unnoticed by the people of power.
The disputes and fights following the introduction of tobacco to the Ottoman Empire revealed
subtle tendencies of the societal circumstances and orders at the time. Anxieties that Christian
Europe would overrule the Islamic World were frequent, especially among religious leaders,
and every new aspect of Western culture was first perceived with utmost suspicion.
The debates which followed between various scholars regarding the legal situation concerning
tobacco shaped the way in which innovations now can be implemented into the Muslim
world, where the Qu’ran defines most of the virtues and moral guidelines.
For the first time in its history, the act of consuming tobacco has brought people from all of
societies classes together and made them embrace the joyous and divertive life, stirring up
those virtues and putting them into new negotiation.

The term “early modern culture” definitely has a European background and is mostly defined
through the exploration and colonization of the Americas, the upcoming book-printing and the
establishment of trade on an immense global scale. As this defines only the material
circumstances at the given time, I tried to establish new perspectives on which cultural
sentiments were shifted. Therefore, to apply the term to a distinct place at the time, namely
the Ottoman Empire, might be unjust towards its own transformations and upkeeping of
cultural patterns and realities uninfluenced by those of European expansion.
Throughout this essay, we have a claimed a crucial part of “early modern culture” to be a
sentiment of joy and division for the ordinary people, the perspective of escaping one’s own
submissive position in society and generating joy within the earthly life, not only the eternal
afterlife proposed by religion.
The act of liberating oneself from the strict amendments imposed by Ṭayyibāt (Taḥrīm al-
Khabā’ith wa Ḥillīyyah al-Ṭayyibāt)8, and the khaba’ith9 not by objecting them but by
constant re-negotiation under pressures from new consumption behaviors, led to a new self-
awareness and enjoyment of life in the urban cultures of the Ottoman Empire at a time of its
largest expansions.
The limitations of this paper are clear. First, the accessible number of sources regarding the
topic is relatively scarce. Second, my context from the course being strictly focused on the
Christian European Empires only must have influenced the way I write about the Muslim
World, in a time, where the differences and disputes between the religions were plentiful.
Last, the global scope of the topic is deeply rooted in economic and social strcutures on a
scale that took place over the centuries, so the bigger picture of tobacco and how it changed
world culture lies widely out of the scope and dimension of this paper.
Ultimately it can be said, that through the implementation of tobacco in the Ottoman Empire
in the 17th century, consumer culture and consumption behavior have changed and they
influence cultural similarities and differences until today.

8
Qu’ran: „[7:157] —those who follow the Apostle, the uninstructed prophet, whose mention they find written
with them in the Torah and the Evangel, who bids them to do what is right and forbids them from what is
wrong, makes lawful to them all the good things and forbids them from all vicious things, and relieves them
of their burdens and the shackles that were upon them —those who believe in him, honour him, and help him
and follow the light that has been sent down with him, they are the felicitous.’”

9
“the khabā’ith are those things which one detests, due to their ugly and disgusting nature and therefore
anything that fits into this description will be prohibited to eat. On the contrary, ṭayyib are things which one
finds nice, pure and pleasant, and these things are ḥalāl to eat.” Source: https://www.iqraonline.net/principle-
of-prohibition-khabaith-permissibility-tayyibat/
Literature:

Grehan, J., (2004), Smoking and “Early Modern” Sociaability: The Great Tobacco Debate in
the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Century), The American Historical
Review, Vol. 111, No. 5 (December 2006), pp. 1352-1377, Oxford University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ahr.111.5.1352?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents

Mar’I bin Yusuf al-Karmi (d. 1623/24). Tahqiq al-burhan fi sha’n al-dukhan aladhi
yashrabuhu al-nas al-an, ed. Mashhur bin Hasan Al Salman (Beirut, 1974)

Sayyid, Ali, (2020), Principle of Prohibition of Khaba’ith and Permissibility of Tayyibat, Iqra
Online
https://www.iqraonline.net/principle-of-prohibition-khabaith-permissibility-tayyibat/

Randall, V., (1999), History of Tobacco, Boston University Medical Center

https://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/tobacco/history.htm

Goodman, J., (1994), Tobacco in History; The Cultures of Dependence, London, Routledge
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goodman

Rahimi, B., Sahin, K., (2018), Introduction: Early Modern Islamic Cities, Journal for Early
Modern Cultural Studies, Vol 18, Nr. 3, pp. 1-15
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26899545?refreqid=excelsior
%3A1885e8938ed0a4d17767c60bb6c446ed&seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents

Author Unknown, Year Unknown, Economic Aspects of Tobacco during the Colonial Period
1612-1776, Tobacco.org,
http://archive.tobacco.org/History/colonialtobacco.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20170217171342/http:/archive.tobacco.org/History/
colonialtobacco.html

Edited by: Gilman, S., Xun, Z., (2004), Smoke: A Global History of Smoking, University of
Chicago Press, pp. 68-83 by Manohar, P., and Suzuki, T.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smoking

WHO, (2021), Tobacco: Fact Sheet

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco