The Philosophy of Love in Arabic Poetry

The view of love in Arabic poetry is a philosophical view that does not square with the rule of soundness; and the apparent reason, when the matter is laid bare, is that the people of poetry live in ivory towers that touch the world of reality only through eloquent poetic description, which carries a man in spirit alone to the world of those towers rising high above the reality of man... Had the tangled side of love been treated in logical, reasoned studies, these would have raised love to the loftiest degrees of personal dignity and of an integrity stripped of the odious carnal vices to which the party of forbidden pleasure resorts under the cover of "chaste love." In truth, with these intended designs we wrong chaste spiritual love, and we defile its august sanctity in order to arrive at the vessel of sins. But if a reasonable man looked deeply into the life of love, he would grasp the goodly wisdom that uproots from the soul the inclination to malice and strips the film of deceit from this spiritual life which God hallows and which poets and writers honor in their memorable sayings and their splendid verses describing great spiritual love... The great Mr. Omar Abu Risha has recited to us, in his poem "A Woman":

So come, let us seek out the world of passion,
whose bounds the night-journey of illusion has never reached,

So that when we two meet,
the surge of longing shall not pass beyond the lips;

And we drain the cup brimming with wishes,
and leave its fragrance in the mouth of purity.

Desire of my soul, I see your silence
unbending, stabbing the hope within my soul,

Feeding doubt, in whose fist
is a blade more murderous in its thrust than any other.

Look at me long... and read
in my eyes a sign whose radiance has spread abroad:

That my love for you has left no dry stubble
for the lust of sin's flame.

This is what the poet Mr. Omar Abu Risha has said, chanting in his love the language of heaven, and showing the whole world that love is not a cheap pleasure that kills the heat of the vital upwelling in the body.

As for our Iraqi poet Mr. Khalil al-Hashali, he has uttered in his spiritual love many musings in which he set down firm eloquence and essential language; I pick from them the following:

I see you — as I wish you to be — when I see you,
and I adore all that invites your pleasure;

And I have nothing but my soul to offer in ransom,
and I swear it is forever a ransom for you.

He said also, in his poem "The Dark Enchantress," in which he set down a portion of his wonted genius:

... We, O my dark enchantress, belong to the world on high;

... We are a secret that came to this universe before mankind;

... We are a portion of "the Truth" in an eternal image of love;

... We are a portion of eternity, come as humans upon the earth.

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And he said:

... By the light I swear, and by the lofty ray,
... And by the arrivals of good fortune among my days,
... And by every woman strutting, clamorous with bliss,
... Swaying in a garment of dreams,
... And by the covenant of your affection — a covenant of majesty,
... And by the holiness of your soul — the overflow of my passion:
... That I dwell in remembrance of you as long as I live, and I have
... Nothing but your words, in my wishes, and my own.

These splendid verses, goodly musings that have sunk deep into the heart of the poet Mr. al-Hashali, gather (1) the immortal maxim "speech is the attribute of the speaker"; for our finely-strung poet has shown his noble feeling in golden verses in which glitter magnanimity of soul and the loftiness of humanity, verses teeming with the pangs of that human love which lives in the being of every creature in existence. Spiritual love is a distinction lacking in certain souls that have preferred the mire of vice to virtue and made of love a diversion (like cards and dice); and so the poets' view of love is nothing but a lofty yearning for what lies in their depths, which they have sent forth as sighs calling the rest of mankind to understand the landmarks of sound spiritual love. But their sighs go for nothing, and their calls ring out in the sky with no hope of avail, so long as what matters to the many in the life of love is the body before the soul.

Damascus — Munawwar Fawwal

(1) gather