Perfume in the Gulf

Long before Paris, there was the incense road. Frankincense from Dhofar and Somalia travelled north by camel through the Arabian peninsula to the temples of Egypt, Greece and Rome; the wealth of the early Arabian cities was built on resin. Oud came the other way, from the forests of Assam and Indochina, and became the scent of hospitality across the Gulf.

Arab chemists shaped modern perfumery. The ninth-century polymath Al-Kindi wrote a book of perfume recipes, and the technique of steam distillation that gives us rose water and rose oil was refined in the Islamic world; the rose gardens of Taif, in the mountains above Mecca, still produce one of the most prized rose oils on earth.

The traditions that grew from this are still daily practice: dukhoon, or bakhoor, wood chips soaked in fragrant oils and burned on charcoal to scent clothes and rooms; attars, oil-based perfumes worn on the skin without alcohol; and layering, oil first, then spray, then smoke, so that a person carries three scents that agree with each other. Our library is a modern version of the same idea.