Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (37 page)

To the extent that
ʿishq
was perceived to be an extrinsic power that overwhelmed the heart and soul, it was considered to be a malady with recognized symptoms: emaciation, paleness, fluttering of the heart, insomnia, complete mental absorption with the beloved, etc. Passionate love was regularly classified as a disease in the medical literature of the period.
¹³⁸
In its most developed stages, it could be lethal: some of the legendary
ʿudhri
lovers of the early Islamic period were said to have died from love, and Muhammad ibn Da
wu
d al-Z
a
hiri
(d. 909), author of the earliest extant Arabic book on profane love,
Kitab al-zahrah,
supposedly died from his love for a youth named Muhammad al-S
aydala
ni
. The physician Da
wu
d al-Ant
a
ki