nargileh

"One of the main reasons she failed was the transport," said her mother Umm Mohammed, who makes a meagre living selling charcoal for nargilehs, or shisha pipes.

“Maybe I won’t smoke nargileh that day,” he said, referring to smoking tobacco through a water pipe.

When their games were done, they leaned back and smoked water pipes called nargilehs.

He would, had it served his purpose, have smoked a pipe, but it would have been the jewelled nargileh of the Grand Mogul.

Halcyon days While we waited for our dinner, the Baghdad speciality mazgouf , we sat down with a drink and a nargileh.