600 years ago, there was no tabacco in the “old world.” The hookah was\is used for smoking hashish.
The term ‘Assassin’ is generally assumed to be derived from its connections to the Hashshashin, a militant religious sect of Ismaili Muslims, thought to be active in the Middle East in the 8th to 14th centuries. This mystic secret society killed members of the Abbasid elite for political or religious reasons.[3]
Stories claim that these early assassins were drugged during their murders, often with materials such as hashish and opium. The name assassin is derived from either hasishin for the supposed influence of the drugs, and disregard for their own lives in the process, or hassansin for their leader, Hassan-i-Sabah.
What I heard was that they were kept in brothels, plied with hashish and opium, and convinced that they were in heaven. This made them fearless on their missions because they believed that they were already dead.