I’ve tried to explain as best I can why this is likely to be wrong on several counts. One reason for the authors’ error could be that they were aiming to tailor their work to the misunderstandings of their predominantly Western audience: i.e., ‘charas’ for hand-rubbed cannabis resin only; ‘hashish’ more properly for dry-sieved cannabis resin. Clearly, the problem with that would be that ethnobotany should not be about catering to the mistaken beliefs of your readers. But it’s unlikely that’s what was going on. The authors seem to have made a genuine mistake. In the context of ethnobotany, it’s fair to say this a serious mistake in the way that it obscures the crucial role of Islam in this chapter of the history of cannabis culture.

To be clear, in no way can the possibility be excluded that the metonym charas was indeed coined in India. But, if so, then the circumstantial evidence all points to this occurring in the medieval Muslim period in the context of the Afghans, Tajiks, and Turks who popularized Central Asian cannabis culture, with their most visible and controversial vanguard being the radical dervishes known as ‘malangs’ and ‘qalandars’.

Which is to say, everything points to Islam and Central Asia and to the name charas originating with sieved resin in the context of Persianate cannabis culture, whether that’s Persianate cannabis culture in its Central Asian homeland or the Persianized world to its south in medieval India.

A chillum house, Balkh Province, northern Afghanstan, 2018

Charas, Balkh Province, northern Afghanistan, 2018

Garda, Balkh Province, northern Afghanistan, 2018

For more photos from a recent trip to Afghanistan’s cannabis heartland, Balkh, take a look here.

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p.s., and on it goes; so, to clarify this clarification:

Among consumers in the West there’s a misconception that charas refers only to hand-rubbed resin, and likewise that it’s more appropriate to use the term hashish to refer to dry-sieved resin. The two misconceptions go hand-in-hand. This same misunderstanding is strongly implied in the quote from Clarke (‘the proper Arabic term’; it’s ambiguous what ‘proper’ relates to, but ‘term’ seems more likely than ‘Arabic’).

But, ironically, ‘charas’ is the name that from an ethnobotanical and historical perspective has the stronger association with sieved resin. ‘Hashish’ originates as a general term akin to ‘bhang’, ‘bang’, or ‘cannabis’. In other words, ‘hashish’ denotes the drug-type plant and its preparations, including coarse herbal material, confections, drinks, sinsemilla, and resin. ‘Charas; only ever refers to resin.

UPDATE: The Afghanistan charas Olympics has been inaugrated!