An old Persian adage goes: Mushk aan ast ki bebooyad, na aan keh attaar begooyed—a great perfume announces itself by its fragrance, it’s not the one that the perfumer says is good. Well, up until recently most did not realize that the Afghan Taliban are the contemporary torchbearers of the great secular—or religious— tradition of Pashto, Persian (Dari) and, additionally, Urdu poetry. Enter the perfumers Alex Strick van Linschoten, Felix Kuehn and Faisal Devji. The trio is here to tell you about the musk of the Taliban verse that you may have been missing out on. Alex and Felix—as the editors like to call themselves—have come out with an anthology of the verse composed by the Taliban members, fellow travellers and people living under their rule.