Cairo’s governor confiscates and burns hashish

In 1324, Cairo’s governor confiscated hashish in Bab al-Luq and had it burned at Bab Zuwayla. This was an urban enforcement action against a known cannabis market. It should be distinguished from the more expansive crop-eradication campaign described in some later histories.

A neighbourhood in the record

Hakan Özkan discusses the episode while studying the poetry of Ibrahim al-Mi‘mar, who died in 1348. The poet lived in Bab al-Luq, a Cairo quarter associated in al-Maqrizi’s account with performers, wrestlers and other people outside the governing elite.

Özkan names the governor, gives the date as 724 AH/1324 CE and describes large quantities of hashish confiscated in the quarter. The material was burned at Bab Zuwayla, where confiscated wine was destroyed at the same time. His reference leads through Thomas Bauer’s study of al-Mi‘mar to the historical account.

The location and pairing with wine give the episode a concrete shape. It was a public destruction of intoxicants in a city, rather than simply an abstract statement that cannabis had become illegal everywhere.

Poetry alongside policing

Al-Mi‘mar’s surviving work includes poems concerned with drinking and hashish. Özkan describes him as a master-builder whose poetry offers a perspective beyond court patronage. That literary setting helps explain why a cannabis confiscation appears in a study of vernacular verse.

It also warns against treating poetic speakers as straightforward autobiography. A poem about intoxication is not proof that its author personally followed every practice described. The literary record and the confiscation account illuminate different aspects of urban life.

A broader account, with limits

Ernest Abel describes 1324 as a month-long military campaign against cannabis fields around Cairo, following an earlier period in which farmers paid tax to grow it. He says cultivation resumed within months.

That account is useful as a later historical interpretation, but the additional source examined here directly supports confiscation and burning in the city. It does not independently verify the month-long field campaign. The short database description now centres on the more specifically documented action.

What can be concluded

The episode shows authorities intervening against cannabis and wine in a particular place and year. It establishes neither the first prohibition in Egypt nor the end of cannabis consumption there.

The later suppression around 1378–1379 is recorded separately. Keeping the actions separate preserves the changing forms of enforcement without inventing a single uninterrupted national regime between them.^[1][2]