The arena of lovers, authored by: Abu Muhammad Jafar bin Ahmed bin Al-Hussein Al-Sarraj the reciter

The book "The Deaths of Lovers" represents a link in a series of chapters about love in Arab Islamic civilization. The author, Al-Sarraj, wrote this book after the Arab library had known about fourteen books and essays on the subject before it. A number of books on the topic were written afterward, most of which were heavily influenced by it. This chapter was distinguished by the strength of its radiance. This is what prompted Professor Muhammad Hassan Abdullah to say in his book "Love in Arab Heritage": "There is no exaggeration in saying that the book 'The Deaths of Lovers' is considered the greatest and most important source of news and stories of lovers, regardless of their different love orientations, and its influence is clear in the writings of those who came after it." We begin with the name that Jafar Al-Sarraj chose for his book. We find it composed of the words "Deaths" and "Lovers." In Lisān al-ʿArab, "مصارع" (Deaths) comes from "صَرَعَ" which means to throw down or bring to the ground. It is said that "صَرَعَته المنيّة" meaning he died. And "مصارع العشّاق" refers to where they were killed. "العشّاق" (Lovers) comes from "عشق," which is excessive love and attachment to something that one does not part from. It is mentioned in Lisān al-ʿArab that "the lover is called a lover because he withers from intense longing, just as the love plant withers if cut off, and the love plant is a tree that greens then withers and turns yellow." Several writers have spoken about this pairing, including Abdul Rahman Badawi, who wrote about the connection between love and death in his book "Death and Genius," saying: "The relationship between love and death can be explained in two ways: one is a pure Sufi interpretation based on the idea of union between the lover and the beloved, and the other is a purely human interpretation based on the idea of continuous becoming and human development in the individual concerning himself or concerning the species. The motive in the first case is the passion that is a component of the Sufi experience, and in the second case, it is the tendency toward transcendence that is a component of the human experience." Muhammad Hassan Abdullah also highlighted this connection in the title he chose for his study and analysis of the book "مصارع العشّاق," which is: "Al-Sarraj and Death as Love." He explained that "the central point that motivated Al-Sarraj’s choice is the reaching of the peak of emotion through love with death, which is considered as death itself—similar to longing, fainting, and madness in many cases." Number of pages: 602