Ibn Hazm was an Andalusian writer, jurist, and
Muslim theologian active in the early 11th century.
His times were turbulent—he lived through a civil
war that ended the Umayyad caliphate as well as
destructive wars between Arabs and Berbers. A
failed politician, Ibn Hazm became an influential
spokesman for strict literalist interpretation of the
KORAN, and was also the author of one of the bestknown treatises on sensual love ever written.
Ibn Hazm’s father was vizier under the
Umayyad caliph at Córdoba, and Ibn Hazm was
raised in the harem of the palace of Madinat al-Zahira, where until the age of 14, he was educated by
the women of the harem in the Koran and in poetry. When the Caliph Hisham II fell, Ibn Hazm’s
father was deposed and disgraced, and the family
moved to Córdoba. But in 1013, their home was
destroyed when the Berbers attacked the city, and
Ibn Hazm began a wandering existence. He did
study history, theology, and law, and he served as
vizier at least twice. But he was also persecuted for
his support of the Umayyad party, and was imprisoned, banished, and at times forced to flee for his
life. Disappointed in the political situation of his
time, Ibn Hazm seems to have withdrawn from
public life and retired to devote the last 30 years of
his life to his writing.
Ibn Hazm’s most popular text, Tawq alHamama (The Dove’s Neckring or Ring of the
Dove), was one of his earlier works, written in
1027. The title alludes to the practice among lovers
of using pigeons to send messages back and forth.
The book was purportedly written at the request of
a friend who asked Ibn Hazm to discuss the nature of love. It is a collection of prose passages on
various aspects of love, illustrated by short poems
and also by fascinating autobiographical details reflecting a good deal about life in Umayyad Córdoba. While the treatment of love was a fairly
conventional theme in medieval Arabic literature,
one is struck in this text by Ibn Hazm’s psychological insights. Also fascinating are the parallels with
the European COURTLY LOVE tradition apparent in
this text: Though the object of the male lover’s affections in Ibn Hazm’s text is often a beautiful slave
girl (rather than the noble lady of the courtly
lover’s songs), the lover still becomes the lady’s servant, and the lover’s nobility was refined by his
service to his beloved:
It is not just to disapprove
A meek servility in love:
For Love the proudest men abase
Themselves, and feel it no disgrace.
(qtd. in Irwin 1999, 255)
Ibn Hazm seems to have revised the text of The
Ring of the Dove later in his life. The last two sections of the book, “The Vileness of Sinning” and
“The Virtue of Continence,” are quite out of keeping with his earlier tales of sensual love. Their tone,
however, is consistent with the older Ibn Hazm’s
concerns. In his later years he condemned love poetry and claimed it promoted immorality. He also
came to support the views of the Zahirites, who
believed in a strict literalist interpretation of the
Koran.
It was in this spirit that Ibn Hazm composed his
other well-known text, Kitah a’-Fisal fi al-Milal wa
al-Ahwa’ al-Nihal (The book of religious and philosophical sects). In legal theory Ibn Hazm thought
that all law must conform to a very narrow literalist
interpretation of the Scriptures. In this book Ibn
Hazm examines—and condemns—all forms of religion that he was aware of. Christianity and Judaism receive especially harsh treatment in the
book, but worst of all is Ibn Hazm’s condemnation
of any sect of Islam (including Sufis, Shi’ites, and
others) that does not follow the true Zahirite principles of scriptural literalism.
Such a stance put Ibn Hazm at odds with most
of the Islamic sects of his time, and many of his
later religious texts were publicly burned as heretical. But Ibn Hazm remains famous for his contributions to literature in Arabic. He is said to have
written some 400 books, though fewer than 40 are
extant. Of these, the youthful work on love that Ibn
Hazm rejected has become the work for which he
is best remembered.
Bibliography
Arberry, A. J., trans. The Ring of the Dove. London:
Weatherby, 1953.
Irwin, Robert, ed. Night and Horses and the Desert: An
Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1999.