Damascus: Makers of Pipe Stems

Date: c. 1890-1906

Arabic: qaṣībātī
The qaṣībātī produced the pipe stem for the traditional three-part tobacco pipe (chibouk). The material used by the qaṣībātī included the stems of almond, bamboo and holm oak wood. The wood stems were pierced and subsequently shaped on a lathe. The pipes were often ornamented with painting. Shorter pipes were made as cigarette holders. See also the maker of tobacco pipes (ghalāyīnī).

Citation: al-Qasimi, Muhammad Saʿid, Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, and Khalil al-ʿAzm (al-Azem), Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, ed., Zafer al-Qasimi. (Le Monde d’Outre-Mer passé et présent, Deuxième série, Documents III, Paris and Le Haye: Mouton and Co., 1960), p. 356 (chapter 280).
Also discussed in: Marcus Milwright, ‘Wood and Woodworking in Late Ottoman Damascus: An Analysis of the Qāmūs al-Ṣināʿāt al-Shāmiyya’, Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 61 (2012), pp. 545-66.