Golden Age of Islam

[ciddhartha]

Yooo, Muslims were so badass back in the days. Drinking wine, committing zina and buying slaves for their beauty.

I took a break from reading books on philosophy and Buddhism and read 1001 Arabian Nights, which was grand. I'm telling you, ladies, forget 50 Shades of Grey, this book is steamier AND better written. I will leave you with a short excerpt:

Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the seven hundred and eighty-seventh night, SHE CONTINUED:

I have heard, O fortunate king, that when Hassan saw the girls coming out of the pool, the beauty and grace of their leader stole away his wits and he recited those lines. After they had dressed, they sat talking and laughing, still watched by Hassan, who was drowning in the sea of love and astray in the valley of his thoughts. He was telling himself: 'It must have been because she was afraid that I might fall in love with one of these girls that my "sister" told me not to open the door.' He sat there studying the beauty of their leader, who was the loveliest thing God had created in her age, and who surpassed all mankind in her grace. Her mouth was like the ring of Solomon, her hair was blacker than the night of rejection for a wretched lover, her forehead was like the new moon on the festival of Ramadan, her eyes were like those of a gazelle and her shining nose was curved. Her cheeks were like red anemones, her lips were like coral and her teeth were pearls set in a necklace of gold, while her neck was a silver ingot placed above what was like the branch of a ban tree. In her belly were folds and nooks, causing the passionate lover to cry out to God, and her navel could contain an ounce of the most fragrant musk. She had plump thighs like marble columns or cushions filled with ostrich feathers, and between them was something roofed and pillared that looked like a large hill or a hare with flattened ears. In the beauty of her form she surpassed the branches of the ban tree or the shoots of the bamboo, and she was as the poet described:

She is a girl the moisture of whose mouth is honey,
With a glance more piercing than a sharp Indian sword;
In her movements she shames the ban tree's branch,
And when she smiles, the lightning flashes from her teeth.
I compared her cheeks to roses that bloom in line,
But she turned away and said: 'He has no shame
Who likens me to a rose, my breasts to pomegranates.
Have pomegranates a bough that can bear my breasts?
I swear by my beauty, my eyes and my heart's blood,
By the paradise of my union and the hell of my aversion,
If he says this again, I shall forbid to him
The sweetness of my union and burn him with the fire of my rejection.
They say that gardens are adorned with lines of roses,
But these are not the roses of my cheeks, nor is their branch my figure.
If he can find my equal in a garden,
What does he look for when he comes to me?'



This particular story plays on a certain motif found in the book where a man falls from grace and must go on a voyage, at the end of which he regains his honor and his wealth (and a woman.)