The Ritual of the Khabur

In North Africa and the Middle East, a widespread ritual prevails among many young men: a ritual which I once enjoyed daily, but now no longer partake in. Egyptians call it by many names—khabur, dabus, cubea—but the ritual remains the same. Every evening, and particularly Thursday evening, tens of thousands of middle class men from around the capital come home (to their parents’ homes until they get married), eat dinner, and go out to meet their friends and smoke hashish in the street. They send calls, missed calls, and texts to friends, anxious and inquiring, “Where can we score tonight?” The young men sit on the hoods of their cars, chain-smoking cigarettes, but it’s not enough.

Finally, after driving around Abbasaya and Heliopolis in packs of Peugeots, Mitsubishis, and Daewoos, a deal is made. They get back in the cars and drive to a sequestered location, and sitting on the hoods of their cars or on the curb, they cut a thin ribbon of hashish from a 10g. piece (an ‘ersh). The ribbon is heated and rolled either between the fingers or in a crisp 10 piaster note, until it is perfectly round, long, and thin, making a khabur. Then, a cigarette is wedged into a small drinking glass, and the khabur is hung from the cigarette and lit as incense. A card placed over the mouth of the cup catches the smoke. The glass fills with smoke slowly, and when it is full, the aromatic smoke is inhaled, and the cup left to fill again. The cup is then passed around for everyone to smoke, the same way Alexandrian sailors smoked hashish centuries ago.

The ritual, first shown to me by four police officers in the parking lot of the Alexandria Carrefour, is shrouded in etiquette and always done in a group. Generally, there is no correct direction to p...

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...nbreakable social stratification, the ritual of the cup is a way to quiet their anxieties and move along. It is a way to reaffirm group identity and friendships, and one of the only avenues of recreation available to the young men of Cairo’s vanishing middle class. Thus, the ritual has a very direct function in Egyptian society and for the individual as well.

Sadly, because of draconian crackdowns on drug smugglers along Egypt’s North Coast, the price of hashish has grown exponentially in the past two years, placing this last cultural recreation out of the reach of all but the wealthiest Cairenes. Although smoking has many negative impacts, it also had many positives. Contrary to the American belief that cannabis makes one unproductive, in Egypt it is seen as tonic for boring or tedious work and as an excellent way to wind down at the end of the day. Good times.