Dove's Ring on Intimacy and Companions

The Dove's Necklace on Intimacy and Affection by the Andalusian imam and jurist Ali Ibn Hazm is a timeless literary and intellectual masterpiece in the study of love and its manifestations. For Ibn Hazm, love is not merely a passing emotion, but a secret of existence, permeating the human soul, transforming its circumstances and upending its balance. The author delves into a meticulous analysis of the meanings and symptoms of love, its praiseworthy and blameworthy qualities, and its plagues and pitfalls, drawing on personal experience and real-life situations he witnessed himself. Stories and anecdotes are interspersed throughout the book, lending the text a rare human depth and authenticity. The stories of lovers and their touching moments are presented with a refined literary flair. What distinguishes this timeless treatise is that it does not limit itself to describing love alone; it concludes with a moral tone that calls for chastity and protecting oneself from sin, combining the warmth of emotion with the wisdom of a jurist. This book confronts the reader with the most refined and honest accounts of love in the Arab heritage.