LOVE LETTERS FROM A WIDOWER: THE MYSTERY OF SOUL MATES IN LIGHT OF ANCIENT WISDOM

(Quoted from the book:) "This Persian Simorgh is identified as a fabulous bird from Islamic mythology, the Anka. The tenth century Arab historian Al-Masudi mentions it in The Meadows of Gold: "The prophet (Mohammed) told us one day: ‘In the first ages of the world, God created a bird of astonishing beauty and bestowed upon her every perfection: a face like that of Man, a radiant plumage of the richest colours… God created a female on the likeness of the male and named the coup le Anka’.” Note how that is the couple’s name; it is, then, a double, androgynous bird, a bird that embodies the mystery of the “two in one”. Among the ancient Muslim sages, the Anka became a symbol of Divinity equivalent to the Simorgh, to which it eventually became similar. Its radiant plumage, says Masudi, is “of the richest colours”, which leads us to imagine it to be similar to the peacock, covered in the colours of the rainbow, that androgynous symbol." https://www.amazon.com/Love-lette...

(Quoted from the book:) Talking about the Arabic ideal of chastity, Blanca, is talking about Udhra love, which is how courtly love is known in the Arab world. The name comes from a tribe who flourished between the seventh and eighth century in the Southeast of the Arabian Peninsula, in a remote valley in Yemen. The Bedouin tribe of the Banu Udhra, the “Sons of Virginity”, produced many poets; with the peculiarity that Udhra poetry is monothematic: it deals with one single issu e, spiritual love. But, in addition, the Udhra poets practiced what they preached: they became famous for cultivating the type of love they put into verse; a pure and chaste love, so intense (its intensity came from its purity) that it was said they “died of love”. The Arabic chronicles of the time tell about Udhras dying of no particular infirmity, but of love towards their lady. Otherwise, my dear, Udhra love verged on mysticism, on religion, to the point that orthodox Muslims denigrated and accused it of inter...

(Quoted from the book:) Al-Mas‘udi, another Arabic wise man, contemporary of Ibn Hazm, regales us with yet another example of the same belief when, alluding to his beloved, he proclaims: “My soul was bound to hers before we were created.” And a Sufi sage (a sage who adheres to Sufism, the biggest strand on the “reverse side” of Islam), the Persian Ruzbihan Baqli of Shiraz will, one century later, express an identical conviction in his treatise on mystical love The Jasmine of  the Fedeli d’Amore (The Jasmine of the Love’s Faithful)… But first, what are The Love’s Faithful? “Love’s Faithful” is what numerous ancient sages and poets of mystical temperament, both in the East and the West, often called themselves. These ancient sages, Blanca, were protectors of a belief essential to the theory of twin souls: the belief that erotic love has its ontological roots in Divinity. The Love’s Faithful served as a secular religion: a religion without temples, or Scriptures, priests, or dogmas. ...