#incense?

Russian Lump

As for Afridun, the emperor of Constantinople, along with the king of Rum and his mother, Dhat al-Dawahi, they collected the army commanders and said: "We would have achieved our goal and satisfied our desires, but we failed because we were relying on our greater numbers." Dhat al-Dawahi said: "The only thing that will be of use to you is to seek favour from the Messiah and to hold fast to the true faith. By the truth of the Messiah, the one thing that strengthened the Muslim army today was that devil, Sultan Sharkan." The emperor then said: "Tomorrow, I intend to draw up the army and then send out against the Muslims the famous knight Luqa ibn Shamlut. If he meets Sharkan in single combat, he will kill him and he will then kill the other Muslim champions until not one of them is left. I intend tonight to consecrate you with the finest incense of all." When his men heard this, they kissed the ground, for by the incense he meant the excrement of the Patriarch, the denier and rejecter of the truth. The Christians used to compete with each other for this because of the value they placed on its foulness, and the great Rumi priests would send it through their empire wrapped in pieces of silk and mixed with musk and ambergris. When kings heart of it, they would buy a dirham's weight of it for a thousand dinars and they would send to ask for it to use as incense at weddings, while other priests would mix it with their own excrement, as that of the Patriarch was not enough for ten provinces. The principal kings would mix a little of it with the kohl they used as eye ointment, and they employed this in their treatment of the sick and those suffering from stomach pains.