Cannabis in Arabic Verse and Prose

Cannabis in Arabic Verse and Prose includes histories, stories, legal remarks, and poems penned from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries by writers such as al-Maqrizi and al-Badri. They discuss cannabis’s origins, who uses it and how, and whether or not it should be used. This edition presents the Arabic texts with facing English translations.

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, a number of historians, jurists, poets, and others writing in Arabic turned their attention to a newly arrived plant, Cannabis indica, noting its psychoactive powers and how it first spread among Sufis. They discuss cannabis’s origins, who uses it and how, and whether or not it should be used. These works range from historical narratives to anecdotal, sometimes humorous, stories to legal remarks, all buttressed by quotations from poetry. Cannabis in Arabic Verse and Prose also includes a famous section from historian al-Maqrizi’s (1364–1442) influential work on Egypt, excerpts from treatises by lesser-known writers, and the most important text on the subject from this time period by poet al-Badri (1443–1489). This edition presents the Arabic texts with facing English translations, an Arabic-English glossary, and commentary.