Food for thought: When Googling "origin of divan," these are the top 5 entries:

Chicken Divan - A chicken casserole dish with broccoli and mornay or hollandaise sauce.

1950s - Chicken Divan was the signature dish of a 1950s New York restaurant, the Divan Parisienne. In English, the word "divan" came to mean sofa, from the council chamber's benches. In France it meant a meeting place or great hall. It was this meaning that attracted the notice of the owners of the New York restaurant as they searched for a name that would imply continental elegance.

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Divan" is one of the most complicated words I know. The American Heritage Dictionary gives the following definitions:
1. A long backless sofa, especially one set with pillows against a wall.
2. a. A counting room, tribunal, or public audience room in Muslim countries. b. The seat used by an administrator when holding audience. c. A government bureau or council chamber.
3. A coffeehouse or smoking room.
4. A book of poems, especially one written in Arabic or Persian by a single author.
(more at http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001863.php)

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People were lying about on couches (which were backless in those days) as far back as ancient Greece. At the end of the 17th century, the French used the word sofa, derived from the Arabic, and the English followed.
Divan: The word is of Persian origin. A divan is used as a place to sit, usually with cushions.

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divan has a long and spectacularly variegated semantic history. It started out as Persian devan, which originally meant 'small book.' This came to be used specifically for 'account book,' and eventually for 'accountant's office.' From this its application broadened out to cover various official chambers and the bodies which occupied them, such as tax offices, customs collectors, courts, and councils of state. And finally it developed to 'long seat,' of the sort which lined the walls of such Oriental chambers. The word carried these meanings with it via Arabic diwan and Turkish divan into European languages, and English acquired most of them as a package deal from French divan or Italian devano (it did not, however, include the 'customs' sense which survives in French douane, Italian dogana, Spanish aduana, etc).

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The word canapé originally meant a canopy of mosquito netting over a couch or bed. In time it came to mean the bed or divan itself--and then into English with its present meaning of a bit of bread or cracker with a tasty mixture of meat, cheese, or fish spread on't.