I was delighted to hear that you are a Sufi, although I should have known given your passion for authenticity and our favorite doorway to the Divine – Oud. As you well know, many Americans are now familiar with Sufi poetry through some very fine translations of Rumi and others. Sadly, perhaps it is only through the Sufi expression that we may know Islam a bit better than we do. The poetry is sublime and “true” on so many levels and your glorious Oud helps access some of the psychic space within ourselves where the resonances of God and Art reside. Beyond simple “scent”, the quality of your products really does bring us to a new and more sublime world for us to explore. My thanks and prayers for your continued contributions.

Assalaamu alaikum. There is a lot to say on the present olfactory culture of the Arabs, on their glorious past and on their somehow less glorious present, and on the responsibility of their merchants’ “philosophy” for their completely biased, distorted and perverted taste in perfumes. They just do not like it if it is not synthetic, and they do not at all like anything natural, except Oud and Rose, which most of them prefer anyway if it is heavily doctored with a synthetic musk of some kind.

There is a spirituality in perfumes that was taught to us by the Arabs of the past. In fact, love of perfumes is a sign of spirituality, it shows the capacity of a person to enjoy heavenly pleasures as well, not only material ones. The power of perfume to provoke emotions is true only to the measure in which a person can contain emotions.

The love of naturals is an education and I have seen many people who can no longer stand synthetics after having been used to naturals, but the innate love of naturals, so much lacking in the Arab people as a whole, is not only an education, it springs from a quality of the soul that makes you recognize truth when you meet it.

These observations are from a perfumer who, like you, traveled a lot in the Middle East; who, like you, enjoyed the grand hospitality of the Arabs, their generosity and their nobility of character. Our Arab brothers have a lot to teach us new Muslims, but in perfumery, they have to learn from us natural perfumers, who are reviving the antique Arabic tradition of the “medic-perfumer.” The chemical horrors that the European and Asian producers are showering on them is not only poisoning their bodies, but also their heart.

Ross