Al-Attar

Overview

Al-Attar (al-ʿAṭṭār) is built on ʿ-ṭ-r. In Lisān al-ʿArab al-ʿiṭr is perfume and what is used to scent, ʿaṭirat and taʿaṭṭarat is to wear it, and the ʿaṭṭār is the seller of ʿiṭr. Taken from the lexicon alone the word is a perfumer, and that is how a modern reader hears it.

Perfumer or apothecary

The trade the classical sources describe is wider than the lexical gloss. The ʿaṭṭār's shop held aromatics and gums, spices, dried plants and minerals, and the simples (ʿaqāqīr) from which medicines were compounded; it was where a physician's prescription was filled and where an ordinary household bought both its scent and its remedies. The word therefore names something nearer an apothecary or druggist than a perfume merchant, and this gap between the classical trade and the modern sense is the most useful thing to know about the name. In parts of the Arab world the modern ʿaṭṭār still sells herbs and spices; elsewhere the word has narrowed to perfume alone. A family name formed from it records the older trade, whichever sense the word now carries locally.

Bearing the name

An occupational or toponymic family name records what an ancestor did or where he was from, as the name was applied to him — not a lineage. It attaches to no tribe, and two families bearing it need have no connection to one another beyond the word itself.