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Ibn Hazm 994-1064
(Full name Abū Muhammad ‘Alī ibn Ahmad ibn Sa‘īd ibn Hazm)Andalusian philosopher, litterateur, psychologist, historian, jurist and theologian born in Córdoba, present-day SpainThis part Of the book and lovely poetry for love
OF FALLING IN LOVE WHILE ASLEEP
EVERY love affair must necessarily have some original cause. I shall now begin with the most unlikely of all causes of love, so that the discourse may proceed in due order, starting as ever with the simplest and easiest example. Love indeed is sometimes caused by things so strange, that but for having myself observed them I would not have mentioned them at all.
Now here is an instance from my own experience. One day I visited our friend Abu '1-Sari 'Ammar Ibn Ziyad, the freedman of al-Mu'aiyad, and found him deep in thought and much preoccupied. I asked him what was amiss; for a while he refused to explain, but then he said, "An extraordinary thing has happened to me, the like of which I have never heard." "What is that? I enquired. " Last night ", he answered, " I saw in a dream a young maiden, and on awaking I found that I had completely lost my heart to her, and that I was madly in love with her. Now I am in the most difficult straits possible, with this passion I have conceived for her." He continued cast down and afflicted for more than a month; nothing would cheer him up, so profound was his emotion. At last I scolded him, saying, " It is a vast mistake to occupy your soul with something unreal, and to attach your fantasy to a non-existent being. Do you know who she is? " " No, by Allah! " he replied. " Really ", I went on, " you have very little judgment, --and your discretion must be affected, if you axe actually in love with a person whom you have never seen, someone moreover who was never created and does not exist in the world at all. If you had fallen for one of those pictures they paint on the walls of the public baths, I would have found it easier to excuse you." So I continued, until at last by making a great effort he forgot his trouble. Now my opinion is that his case is to be explained as a pure fantasy of the mind, a nightmare illusion, and falls into the category of wishful thinking and mental hallucination. I have expressed this situation actually in verse.
Ah, would I knew who she might be,
And how she walked by night!
Was she the moon that shone on me,
The sun's uprising light?
A mere conjecture of the mind
By cogitation wrought?
An image that the soul designed,
Revealed to me by thought?
A picture that my spirit drew,
My hopes to realize,
And that my sight imagined to
Perceive in fleshly guise?
Or was she nothing of all these,
But just an accident
Contrived for me by Fate's decrees
With murderous intent?
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OF FALLING IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
=======================
OFTEN it happens that Love fastens itself to the heart as the result of a single glance. This variety of Love is divided into two classes.
The first class is the contrary of what we have just been describing, in that a man will fall head over heels in love with a mere form, without knowing who that person may be, what her name- is, or where she lives. This has happened to more than one man.
Our friend Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ishaq informed me, quoting a trustworthy authority whose name has escaped me-though I think it was Judge Ibn al-Hadhdha' that the poet Yusuf Ibn Harun, better known as al-Ramadi, was one day passing the Gate of the Perfumers at Cordova, a place where ladies were wont to congregate, when he espied a young girl who, as he said, "entirely captured my heart, so that all my limbs were penetrated by the love of her ". He therefore turned aside from going to the mosque and set himself instead to following her, while she for her part set off towards the bridge, which she then crossed and came to the place known as al-Rabad. When she reached the mausolea of the Banu Marwan (God have mercy on their souls!) that are erected over their graves in the cemetery of al-Rabad, beyond' the river, she observed him to have gone apart from the rest of the people and to be preoccupied solely with her. She accordingly went up to him and said, " Why are you walking behind me?" He told her how sorely smitten he was with her, and she replied, "Have done with that! Do not seek to expose me to shame; you have no prospect of achieving your purpose, and there is no way to you're gratifying your desire. -" He countered, " I am satisfied merely to look at you." " That is permitted to you ", she replied. Then he asked her, " My lady, are you a freewoman, or are you a slave? " " I am a slave ", she answered. "And what is your name?" he enquired. " Khalwa ", she told him. "And to whom do you belong? " He asked next. To this she retorted, " By Allah, you are likelier to know what inhabits the Seventh Heaven, than the answer to that question. Seek not the impossible! " " My lady ", he begged, " Where may I see you again? " " Where you saw me to-day", she replied, " at the same hour, every Friday." Then she added, " Will you go off now, or shall I? " " Do you go off, in Allah's protection! "
he replied. So she went off in the direction of the bridge; and he could not follow her, because she kept looking round to see if he was accompanying her or not. When she had passed the gate of the bridge, he came after her but could find no trace of her whatsoever. "'And by Allah ", said Abu `Umar (that is to say, Yusuf Ibn Harun), recounting the story of his adventure, " I have frequented the Perfumers' Gate and al-Rabad the whole time from then till now, but I have never come upon any further news of her. I know not whether the heavens have devoured her, or whether the earth has swallowed her up; and the feeling I have in my heart on her account is hotter than burning coals." This is the Khalwa whose name he celebrates in his love lyrics. Thereafter he had news of her after he journeyed to Saragossa for her sake, but that is a long story.
This sort of thing happens frequently enough; I have a poem on the subject, from which I here quote.
Against my heart mine eye designed
Great wrong, and anguish to my mind,
Which sin my spirit to requite
Hath loosed these tears against my sight.
How shall mine eye behold in fact
This justice that my tears exact,
Seeing that in their flood profound
My weeping eye is wholly drowned?
Since I had never seen her yet
I could not know her, when we met;
The final thing of her I knew
Was what I saw at that first view.
The second class of the variety of Love now under discussion is the contrary of what we shall be describing in the chapter next following, if Allah wills. This is for a map to form an attachment at first sight with a young lady whose name, place of abode and origin are known to him. The difference here is the speed or tardiness with which the affair passes off. When a man falls in love at first sight, and forms a sudden attachment as the result of a fleeting glance, that proves him to be little steadfast, and proclaims that he will as suddenly forget his romantic adventure; it testifies to his fickleness and inconstancy. So, it is with all things; the quicker they grow, the quicker they decay; while on the other hand slow produced is slow consumed.
A young fellow I know, the son of a clerk, was one day observed by a lady of noble birth, high position and strict seclusion; she saw him passing by, while peeping out from a place of vantage in her home, and conceived an attachment for him which he reciprocated. They exchanged epistles for a time, by ways more delicate than the edge of a fine-ground sword; and were it not that I purpose not in this essay to uncover such ruses and make mention of such subterfuges, I could have set down here such things as I am certain would have confounded the shrewdest and astonished the most intelligent of men. I pray that God in His great bounty will draw over us and all good Moslems the curtain of His mercy. He is indeed sufficient for our needs....
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