Ibn Hazm Day (Replacing Valentine's Day?)

...Mufti Maybe

The roots of romance are Eastern. The word "Romance" comes from the Arabic word for Rome, "Rum", brought back by to the West by Crusaders. [Likely a bunch of crazed Christian Crusaders, not knowing the language, ended up associating the chivalrous and romantic ways of the Muslim army with the word that army probably used the most]. There's a great book out there that traces Chivalry back to Islamic roots. But, if I may quote Imam Mecca Cola: "I am the modern man." Such being the case, I don't live in the past (like a majority of my brethren) and have some proposals for today, stemming from the past, since we have problems handling things that come out of nowhere (like modernity).

So there was this St. Valentine who, in the second century, continued to marry people despite the Roman Emperor's orders against performing Christian marriages. Later the festival of Lupercalia, the fertility goddesses' festival, was renamed in his honor. A few centuries later we decided that we'd all be compelled to send roses and cards to express our romantic sides.

Now, as the title suggests, I am arguing in favor of changing the name (and theme) of what is currently known as St. Valentine's Day to Ibn Hazm Day. I mean, if Valentine's Day is actually a replacement to Lupercalia, why can't we come and replace Valentine? My argument is as follows:

Americans still associate Islam with Love. Trust me on this. Take, for example, Rumi. He is the best selling poet in America, even though he's been dead for 750 years. Most cats don't even know that Rumi was writing to God, and not really to Shams of Tabriz. But they buy buy buy because Rumi said cool lines such as this: "There's no studying, no scholarly thinking having to do with love, but there is a great deal of plotting, and secret touching, and nights you can't remember at all." Additionally, there's plenty of scholarly work out there suggesting that the reason Westerners have such a problem with the niqab is because they end up starting to wonder what's behind the niqab. Curiosity makes them all crazy and hypersexual and they end up associating our women with sexuality. Funny right? (I find even funnier those brothers who put their wives in niqab thinking that other guys are going to think less about her…yeah, right). Anyway, the point was, Islam is still associated with Love and Sexuality, so why not honor the Godfather of Love and Sexuality by naming a day after him!

Ibn Hazm wrote his manifesto on love in Cordoba. It was called Ring of the Dove. The title is a slang term popular in those days referring to the "neck" area of a circumcised penis.

I started a new paragraph just so you could think about that. This guy who wrote 500 treatises on law and philosophy, and started his own legal madhab (called the Zahiris which lasted for about three centuries and influenced the later Hanbalis) has a direct reference to the phallus as the title of his most popular book. If this is not a counter-argument against those Muslims who are against having a life, I don't know what is.

Ibn Hazm Day will be unique. It will allow us to take our practices and by commercializing them allow us to grow financially secure. For example, the prices of roses around the time of Valentine's Day is just way too high. Imagine if we all suddenly switched to sending…

Upon reaching this part of the article I realized I was in trouble. Despite being at the height of my creative powers I could not think of anything in our Islamic culture that could be made "romantic." I mean, there's a ban of images, so sending little Ibn Hazm dolls is out of the question – I mean, what if yall started to pray to him? Then there's a ban on music so sending old school Moorish love music is out of the question – Don't you guys know that "Islamic" narration about how those that listen to Music will follow Iblis into hell and he will have a black flag stuck up his arse? Then there's a ban on male-female interaction – which kinda puts a damper on this whole romantic thing. Then there's a ban on establishing "lovey" feelings by making eye-contact since we Muslims can only look once, and even then not for long – so that puts things like romantic stalking out of the question.

Then I realized, I was trying too hard to make something with completely different anthropological underpinnings conform to something crass and commercial. The fundamental roots of Ibn Hazm's romance, even "Eastern" romance, are different from modern Western mainstream romance. The two, I fear, cannot be reconciled. And you know I tried! I mean, after all, if there's a sell out, its got to be me, since I talk about feelings and stuff.

In another article I will explore the "Islamic" conceptions of romance – trust me, there's such a thing, despite all the bans, and it existed for a pretty long time. This is an Anti-Climactic Ending, I know. But I don't worry, Imam Mecca-Cola carries this website anyway.

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