Cannabis Literature in the Middle East During the 1910s

What the 1910s inherited

By 1910, Middle Eastern writing on cannabis had accumulated over a thousand years of literary and medical tradition. Medieval Arabic scholars such as Ibn al-Bayṭār (13th century) and al-Maqrīzī (15th century) had documented hashish use in pharmacological and administrative contexts ^[1]. European travelers and colonial writers from the 19th century had added layers of Orientalist imagery and speculation atop these indigenous traditions ^[2].

The critical point: the 1910s did not produce a new literary movement centered on cannabis in the Middle East Strong evidence^[3]. Instead, this decade marks a pivot—older traditions of Sufi poetry and medieval pharmacological treatises were fading, while new forms of regulatory writing, customs reports, court proceedings, and journalistic coverage were emerging as the dominant register Strong evidence^[3].

Egypt became the documentary center of gravity. The Khedival government had formally banned hashish imports in 1879, and enforcement intensified under British occupation through the 1890s and into the 1910s ^[3]. This legal pressure shaped what survived in writing: fewer mystical and poetic texts, more police records, court dossiers, and newspaper accounts of seizures and prosecutions.

Arabic-language writing in Egypt and Greater Syria

The Arabic press in Cairo, Alexandria, and Beirut experienced rapid expansion in the 1910s, with newspapers such as al-Ahrām and al-Muqattam routinely covering news of hashish seizures, court cases, and debates over the drug's social effects Weak / limited. However, cannabis remained a minor topic in these publications compared to politics and coverage of the First World War.

Medical and pharmacological writing continued in a quieter, more specialized register. Arabic translations and adaptations of European materia medica circulated through Ottoman and post-Ottoman educational institutions. References to qinnab (cannabis) and ḥashīsh appeared in pharmacy curricula and medical handbooks, typically reproducing European pharmacological frameworks rather than reviving indigenous Galenic or Islamic medical traditions Weak / limited.

A key limitation: specific named Arabic-language monographs or substantial treatises on cannabis from the 1910s are not well attested in modern scholarly bibliographies No data. Claims of such works should be verified against library catalogs and archival collections rather than accepted at face value. The literary silence on cannabis in 1910s Arabic letters stands in marked contrast to medieval and early Islamic periods.

Ottoman Turkish and Persian sources

Late Ottoman Turkish writing on esrar (hashish) during the 1910s survives primarily in police gazettes, customs records, and occasional newspaper notices rather than in sustained literary or medical texts Weak / limited. The Ottoman state had long maintained an ambivalent regulatory relationship with hashish—taxing it, restricting it intermittently—but World War I and the empire's collapse during this decade disrupted both production networks and documentary practices.

In Persia (Iran), cannabis—known as bang, charas, and other local names—remained embedded in folk medicine, Sufi spiritual practice, and elite literary culture. However, the 1910s, coinciding with the turbulent aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution and the period of Anglo-Russian intervention, produced little new literary engagement with cannabis that survives in standard modern bibliographies Strong evidence^[4]. The richest and most documented Persian cannabis literature belongs to earlier centuries, particularly the Safavid and Qajar periods before 1900.

The Hague Conference and the shift to international diplomacy

Much of what shaped Western understanding of Middle Eastern cannabis in this period did not originate in Middle Eastern literature at all, but in the diplomatic and institutional arena. The International Opium Conference at The Hague (1911–1912) marked a turning point ^[5]. Egypt's government submissions to the conference, supported by delegates such as Mohamed El Guindy, successfully positioned hashish alongside opium as a substance warranting international attention and control ^[3].

Critically, the 1912 Opium Convention itself did not schedule cannabis globally; the conference produced only a non-binding recommendation ^[5]. Cannabis was not formally scheduled by the League of Nations until 1925, at the Geneva conferences. Nonetheless, the diplomatic groundwork laid in 1911–1912 by Egypt and other nations prefigured the later prohibition framework.

European medical literature circulating in the 1910s—particularly in French colonial medicine journals—described hashish use among Egyptian populations in pathological terms, invoking concepts such as 'hashish insanity' and framing cannabis as a public-health crisis Weak / limited. These reports were influential in shaping international policy discourse, but they were methodologically weak by modern standards; they documented cannabis use among asylum patients without establishing causation between cannabis and mental illness.

Common misconceptions

Several claims about 1910s Middle Eastern cannabis literature circulate online but do not withstand scrutiny:

'Famous hashish poets from 1910s Cairo or Baghdad.' The Arabic poetry frequently cited in popular sources as evidence of 1910s cannabis literature—such as verses attributed to Ibn al-Wardī or anonymous mystical poets—is medieval in origin, not contemporary Strong evidence^[1]. Confusion arises because these medieval texts were reprinted, translated, or discussed in later periods, leading readers to misdate them.

'The Hague Conference of 1912 banned hashish worldwide.' This is incorrect. The 1912 Opium Convention did not schedule cannabis; Egypt's lobbying efforts produced a non-binding recommendation only ^[5] Strong evidence. Global cannabis scheduling occurred later, at the Geneva conferences in 1925 and subsequently.

'Sufi orders published hashish manuals during the 1910s.' No such published manuals or treatises from the 1910s appear in standard bibliographies or archival catalogs No data. This claim likely conflates historical Sufi writings on cannabis (which do exist from medieval and early modern periods) with the 1910s specifically.

Why the 1910s matter despite limited literary output

The 1910s are historically significant not because they produced a surge of cannabis literature in the Middle East, but because they witnessed a shift in how cannabis was written about and governed. This decade marks the transition from a centuries-old tradition of poetic, mystical, and indigenous medical engagement with the drug to a new regulatory and medical-psychiatric register shaped by international diplomacy and colonial governance.

Egypt, under British occupation and facing both domestic drug-control initiatives and international pressure, emerged as the leading voice arguing for global cannabis control. This diplomatic framing—positioning hashish as a problem requiring international coordination—became far more influential in shaping 20th-century cannabis policy than any literary text produced in the Middle East during this period.

For historians and students of cannabis culture, the lesson is clear: the 1910s in the Middle East are best understood not as a literary renaissance but as the moment when governments seized the narrative about cannabis away from poets, physicians, and Sufi practitioners, and repositioned it as a matter of state security and international law.

Sources

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