Question: When did hashish first arrive in the Middle East?

Explanation: In the lectures, hashish is treated as a premodern intoxicant that enters the Middle East around the 9th century, alongside wider cultural and commercial circulation within the expanding Islamic world. This helps explain why later medieval sources already discuss hashish as a known practice long before modern colonial drug regimes. (Reading: Ram, Middle East Drug Cultures in the Long View). Quote: “Hashish… was initially introduced in the Middle East in the ninth century…”