Description
The Dove’s Neck-Ring or The Ring of the Dove by Ibn Hazm
(“The Ring of the Dove” or “Dove’s Neck Ring”). Its lucid prose, interspersed with poetry, has many times been translated into Western languages.
The theme of love was especially popular, and a wide variety of intellectuals focused their attention on it. It is a charmingly intimate portrait of social intercourse within the Islamic community of the 11th century.
This work, a blend of sensibilities nurtured by a harem education in his youth and the prudery of a scholar’s Koran based ideals, was Ibn Hazm’s masterpiece of courtly love-love Platonic, exquisite by unrequited. Europe’s troubadours imbibed “The Dove” like a fine wine.
