Attar

Technically attars are distillates of flowers, herbs, spices and other natural materials such as baked soil over sandalwood oil/liquid paraffins using hydrodistillation technique involving a still (deg) and receiving vessel (bhapka).

[4][5] The earliest recorded mention of the techniques and methods used to produce essential oils is believed to be that of Ibn al-Baitar (1188–1248), an Al-Andalusian (Muslim Iberia) physician, pharmacist and chemist.

It was later refined and developed by al-Shaykh al-Rais,[7] a renowned physician who made a distinctive type of aromatic product.

Resins such as myrrh and frankincense, animal substances such as musk and anbar, were used along with roots of special trees and a few other spices.

'Warm' attars, such as musk, amber and kesar (saffron), are used in winter, as they are believed to increase body temperature.

Likewise, 'cool' attars, such as rose, jasmine, khus, kewra and mogra, are used in summers for their perceived cooling effect on the body.

[17] For hundreds of years, attars were considered in some societies, mainly in Islamic cultural folk to be something that attracted angels and warded off evil spirits.

[18] The different sects of Hinduism worship deities through household and temple offerings and Sufis in Islamic shrines and sacred khanqah's.