How a 1,400-year-old tradition of perfume wearing by Muslims shaped cultures, modern perfumery and even Guerlain legend Thierry Wasser’s philosophy
By Ali Bokhari
One of the biggest drivers behind wearing fragrances in the world, whether one wants to believe in a religion or not, is undoubtedly Islam, a faith followed by more than 1.8 billion.
I can already hear the howling of some, angry that I'm bringing up what to their minds is a dangerous, destructive and divisive topic like religion, especially Islam. Some of these critics might even be Muslims lacking confidence to say what they think and stand up for their identity confidently. The shock, the horror!
Look, I'm going to say some stuff you may have never heard. I'm a proud and observant Muslim, a person who tries to follow Islam to the best of his ability. There's a reason I'm bringing this up that has to do with fragrances. I'm hoping we can all chill and have better understanding and respect for an ancient community as well as see that without Islam it's entirely possible modern perfumery would be unrecognizable today. With 1 out of every 5 people on Earth being Muslim, what people from this group says matters.
Islam as a way of life
Unlike some faiths, Islam is a religion that is not just a series of beliefs or ideas, but a way of life. Literally every moment of observant Muslims' lives is governed by practices and ideals. These can range from everything like rules governing eating food with the right hand, how to pray 5 obligatory prayers a day, encouragement to smile, and how we dress, to broad principles that are flexible for different times and places.
While the details on some of these things might be disputed, this concept of the religion being about practice as well as belief is pretty much unanimous. Even people who are non-religuous or atheists who grow up in Muslim lands are often deeply impacted by this concept.
In Islam there are two main sources for the beliefs and practices, 1. the Qur'an, which is the holy book of Islam, which has been uncorrupted and is the same text from when it was revealed more than 1,400 years ago, and 2., the recorded sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad, also known as his "Sunnah".
Muslim scholars of religions do discuss and debate what are the correct beliefs and practices as covered by the sources in the religion, but there is direct evidence that being clean and smelling handsome or beautiful is very important and the sign of a good Muslim. To smell good is one aspect of Islam that is virtually universal amongst all Muslims.
Guidance on fragrances
Muslims are directly encouraged to wear clean and fresh clothing and to smell good while praying, to the extent that pretty much all Muslims believe to do so is meritorious and increases the reward that God, who we call Allah, blesses us with. This is all orthodox and pretty much unanimously agreed by the major Muslim denominations, whether Sunni, Shia, Salafi or Sufi. At a time when most people in Europe considered bathing dangerous and that lice were "God's pearls" in the darkness of the middle ages, Muslims were on the cutting edge not only of fragrances but all of civilization. To wear frags was not a fluke of history but directly based on Islamic injunctions.
There is a recorded tradition in which the Prophet Muhammad is to have said, "Truly Allah is beautiful and loves beauty", and another in which he said "cleanliness is from faith". He also is reported in numerous traditions to have said that perfume was one of his favorite things. In other traditions he is reported to have discouraged eating garlic before meeting others, as the smell could bother them.
The question might come up about specifically what type of perfumes are recommended in Islam. Single note fragrances such as musk, florals or sandlewood were what most people wore in the early days of Islam and throughout much of history until relatively recently. Some Muslims choose to wear these to this day, however to the best of my knowledge any kind of fragrance that smells good is highly recommended.
Wastefulness and unchecked materialism is considered reprehensible in Islam, with a notable exception made for fragrances. Fragrances are one of the few things in Islam that is not only considered acceptable to splurge on but is a good thing to do, provided it doesn't severely negatively impact oneself or others, especially a Muslim's family.
Islam and fragrances today
All of these and many more statements have had a deep impact on Muslims throughout more than 1,400 years, and in turn the world. Just ask Guerlain perfumer legend Thierry Wasser.
In an interview Wasser mentioned the impact that Muslim theology had on his own ideas about fragrances. A friend told him that by smelling good and pleasing Allah's creation through it, it is a form of pleasing the Creator as well. Wasser said he was very impressed by his friend's point, which directly influenced his own thoughts about perfumery. It is this philosophy about what fragrances should do for others as well as the self which may explain why many fragrances made even today in Muslim lands put an emphasis on performance, especially projection.
In 2025, Islam is an international religion with many Western countries having large and influential Muslim populations. People in the West travel to and through Muslim countries like the UAE, especially Dubai. Just as Grasse in France has been a center for perfumery, today Dubai is equally relevant to the fragrance community and in certain quarters even more so.
With so much interaction, cultural exchanges are also at an all time high, especially with young people who are not threatened so much as their elders by others' views and beliefs. Even many Western brands have woken up to this reality with some now regularly producing "oud" perfumes for worldwide consumption, and regular special releases in places as far-flung as Istanbul, Dubai and Singapore.
It would be a mistake to think just because the most widely recognized Middle Eastern fragrance houses in the west only clone Western fragrances, such as Lattafa and Armaf, that that is the extent of Arabian perfumery. While some high end frag houses like Turkey's Hacivat and Oman's Amouage are relatively well known in frag com for producing fragrances worth hundreds of dollars, there are hundreds of other excellent companies that are still completely unknown in the West. I admit that this kind of perfume does not have much of a market, yet in places such as the United States or Germany, marking an exciting and much unexplored area of perfume that Western frag heads are just waking up to.
Some different practices in Muslim majority countries
With 50+ Muslim majority countries and 1.8 billion followers of the faith, there are literally tens of thousands of rich cultures. While Muslims worldwide use spray fragrances, here are a few common practices that are quite different compared to norms in mainstream Western cultures.
Especially popular with people in the Persian Gulf region, many hang their clothes over smoking incense to deeply perfume themselves. They call such incense by many different names, but "bakhoor" is the most common. If you walk through shopping malls in the region you'll likely see smoke with a beautiful rich fragrance wafting in the air from different shops, especially perfume stores.
People in the East tend to use sticks of incense more than bakhoor, in South Asia especially North India and Pakistan it's commonly called agarbati, but you see the same idea behind it, there is a notion that perfuming space is important. Virtually across the Muslim world people use these different kinds of incense to perfume their homes, especially if a guest is visiting or a major celebration is taking place.
In many countries using roller sticks filled with pure fragrance oil is the norm, these can be extremely expensive with a 1 ml bottle costing tens of thousands of dollars, but usually people wear them because at the other end of the spectrum they are generally far less expensive. With these sticks the projection is not always amazing but the longevity most often is.
You can easily pick up bakhoor and oil rollers for a few dollars in most big cities. Search on Google for Islamic book and clothing stores, these almost always carry these scents, as well as incense burners.
Hope this article was useful, any questions?
Ali Bokhari is a passionate perfume lover who was a journalist and corporate communications manager for 20+ years before recently changing careers and entering the world of gardening. Follow him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/aatifbokhari.
Image created by Ali Bokhari using ChatGPT.
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