A hookah (waterpipe, narghile, arghila, kalian, qalyan or shisha) is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored tobacco called shisha in which the vapor or smoke is passed through a water basin (often glass-based) before inhalation.

When a waterpipe is used to produce smoke (as is common in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf), it is usually referred to as a hookah, which means "jar" in Arabic. When the same device is used to vaporize shisha (as is common in India and the Levant), it is usually referred to as a nargile, which means "gourd" in Sanskrit.
The vapor from a nargile looks similar enough to the smoke from a hookah as to cause both users and medical professionals to often confuse the two.

This category is for sites about the recreational use of hookah and other types of water pipes.
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