In the world of love stories, I'm not much of a reader. I hardly pick up books about romance, whether they're made-up tales or real-life experiences. However, there's this one exceptional book I read, "Tenggelamnya Kapa Van der Wijck" by Buya Hamka, an esteemed Indonesian Muslim scholar. Even though it's fiction, it touched my heart deeply and made me feel the complexities of love.
Recent year, I came across a non-fiction book by Ibn Hazm, another remarkable scholar. It's all about understanding the nature of love, but in an artistic and emotional way. Ibn Hazm shares stories of love, based on conversations with people, old tales, and even his own life experiences. The part that hit me the hardest was when he wrote about the heartbreak of being separated from someone he deeply love.
Ibn hazm wrote:
"I have seen this happen to many people (effects of separation), and can relate to you a personal experience of the same order; for I am also one who has been afflicted by this calamity, and surprised by this misfortune.
I was deeply in love with, and passionately enamoured of, a certain, slave-girl once in my possession (permissible to have relations with in the Shari’ah), whose name was Nu’m: she was a dream of desire, a paragon of physical and moral beauty, and we were in perfect harmony.
She had known no other man before me, and our love for each other was mutual and perfectly satisfying. Then the fates ravished her from me, and the nights and passing days carried her away; she became one with the dust and stones.
At the time of her death I was not yet twenty, and she younger than I. For seven months thereafter I never once put off my garments; my tears ceased not to flow, though I am a man not given to weeping, nor discovering relief in lamentation.
And by Allah, I have not found consolation for her loss even to this day. If ransoms could have been of avail, I would have ransomed her with everything of which I stand possessed, my inheritance and all my earnings, aye, and with the most precious limb of my body, swiftly and willingly.
Since her death life has never seemed sweet to me; I have never forgotten her memory, nor been intimate with any other woman.
My love for her blotted out all that went before, and made anathema to me all that came after it."
🕊Thawq al hamamah - Ring of the Dove.
His experience opened my eyes to a whole new side of love and relationships. It's amazing how books can do that, right? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below!