Pair of dark cranberry coloured glass hookah-base shaped vases of globular body with golden decoration in the form of spirals. A hookah is a single or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavoured tobacco whose vapour or smoke is passed through a water basi —often glass-based—before inhalation. There are two theories regarding the origin of the hookah, the first attributing its origins at the court of the Persian Safavid dynasty (1501-1736) from where it eventually spread towards the east and into the Indian subcontinent. The second theory claims that it was invented by Abu’l- Fath Gilani, an Iranian savant who was also physician at the royal court of the Mughal emperor Akbar (1542-1605). The hookah or Argyleh as it is also known, soon reached Egypt and the Levant during the Ottoman period from the neighbouring Persia, where it became extremely popular and where its components and structure were later perfected.