Erotica, Love and Humor in Arabia

The Book of Songs of Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (AD 897-971) is the most extensive collection of anecdotes from pre-Islam Mecca, Medina, Damascus and Baghdad to the beginning of the tenth century. Entertaining and informative, these gems have remained largely inaccessible to Western readers. This translation presents a collection of love stories and poems, biting satires, daring erotic encounters, bathroom humor and hilariously detailed descriptions of feminine beauty, genitalia, sex toys and sex positions, along with stories praising and criticizing both homosexuality and heterosexuality--topics that set the tone for the Arabian Nights centuries later.