“I am certain that anyone who will read this book, will never go back to ideas about love and romancing we have inherited from the Arabs. It, really, creates a divorce with the prevailing notion about its subject.

I think no one prior to Tahar Labib has exerted that much of effort and maintained it with so high a talent and research in order to enjoy the stories told about the lovers, decipher their symbols and reconstruct them, in the collective consciousness of the tribes and their imagination.

Ultimately, we learned why some felt the need, under the Arabic Peninsula, to talk about love, in an unprecedented way, and they loved it”.

The French Orientalist André Mickel

Three different Arabic translations of this book issued between 1981 and 1994. This fourth translation has been made by the author, so was the introduction.

Tahar Labib: Previously, Professor of sociology at Tunisian University. He is the honorary president of the Arabic Association of Sociology. He is the general manager of the Arab Organization for Translation. Most of his works pertain to “The Sociology of Culture”.

Tahar Labib: Previously, Professor of sociology at Tunisian University. He is the honorary president of the Arabic Association of Sociology. He is the general manager of the Arab Organization for Translation. Most of his works pertain to “The Sociology of Culture”.