Abstract
Abstract Although scent has played a diminished role in modern Western societies, it communicated a wide array of meanings to Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Anatolia. This study examines the ubiquitous presence of fragrance in Persian and Armenian poetry, particularly in the works of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), his son Sulṭān Walad (d. 1312), and Kostandin Erznkatsʿi (fl. late thirteenth–early fourteenth cen.), a Christian Armenian poet of Erzincan. For these and other poets, olfaction served as a rich heuristic for sensing the divine essence in many contexts: in everyday customs, such as washing with rose water or the preparation of sherbet; in devotional practices, such as burning incense or receiving communion; and finally in the instruction of poetry itself.
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