The Body in Arabic Love Poetry

Jokha Alharthi re-appraises the relationship between love, poetry and Arab society in the 8th to 11th centuries. She avoids familiar clichés about the purity of love in ‘Udhri poetry – broadly speaking, an Arabic counterpart to the western medieval concept of unconsummated courtly love – and instead questions the traditional much-vaunted emphasis on chastity and the assumption that this poetry omits any concept of the body.

Author : Jokha Alharthi
Illustrator : Nizami
Translated By : Zuwaina Al Tuwiya