 would like to say out of a sense of certainty that the letter the ring of the dove began as a pastime for a friend of ibn hazms who was a true friend and who was residing in almeria and perhaps he had settled there after the dispersal of the people of cordoba in the sedition. in his new homeland the immigrant cordoba fell into the clutches of a captivating love beyond what his age would allow that is he was not like dhu alrummah who was approaching thirty but rather exceeded it and the tribes dreamed of him. so he wrote to his friend and confidant ibn hazm asking him in a book whose meanings exceeded those of all his previous books his opinion on what he had fallen into and he spoke to him with talk of love and he asked him to be kind to him so he prayed to god between himself and himself that he would not leave us to the weakness of our resolve the weakness of our strength the frailty of our structure the hesitation of our opinions the badness of our choices the lack of our distinction and the corruption of our desires but he moved still and mentioned a matter connected to his youth and youth and the wounds had hardly healed and while ibn hazm was turning the faces of opinion his friend who was slow to respond traveled from almeria to xatiba to meet his friend and tell him what was in his heart and he was almost shatiba welcomes that friend until the day of judgment and closes the doors of return to almeria in his face because the fire of war between mujahid and khayran is raging. ibn hazm finds nothing better than stories of those who were afflicted with the same thing that afflicted his friend to console him for what afflicted him and to give him an example of the rightlyguided imams and the rightlyguided caliphs and to remind him of what they knew of the conversations of lovers in cordoba and elsewhere. rather he presents himself to him as a wonderful model of the affairs and dealings of love. i believe ibn hazm in what he says because he is above deliberately lying even if others take such a pretext as an entrance to writing.
أحب أن أقول بداع من إحساس يشبه اليقين أن رسالة طوق الحمامة بدأت تسلية لصديق ذي ود صحيح لابن حزم، كان يستوطن المرية ولعله حلها بعد تفرق القرطبيين في الفتنة . وفي موطنه الجديد، نشب القرطبي المهاجر في براثن حب آسر، على غير ما تسمح به السن ، أي لم يكن مثل ذي الرمة الذي راهق الثلاثين، بل تجاوزها، وحلمته العشائر ، فكتب إلى صديقه وموضع سره ابن حزم، يسأله في كتاب زادت معانيه على ما في سائر كتبه من قبل، رأيه في هذا الذي نشب فيه، ويتحدث إليه بحديث الحب، ويسأله أن يطب له، فدعا الله بينه وبين نفسه ان لا يكلنا إلى ضعف عزائمنا وخور قوانا ووهاء بنيتنا، وتلدد آرائنا وسوء اختيارنا، وقلة تميزنا، وفساد اهوائنا ، ولكنه حرك ساكنا وذكر أمرا متصلا بالصبا والشباب، والجراح لم تكد تندمل، وفيما ابن حزم يقلب وجوه الرأي، إذا بصديقه وقد استبطأ رده يسافر من المرية إلى شاطبة ليلقى صاحبه ويبث إليه ما في نفسه، وما تكاد شاطبة تستقبل ذلك الصديق حتى تقوم القيامة، وتسد في وجهه أبواب العودة إلى المرية، لاشتعال نار الحرب بين مجاهد وخيران، فلا يجد ابن حزم خيرا من قصص من ابتلي بمثل ما ابتلي صديقه، يسليه عما ألم به، ويضرب له المثل بالأئمة الراشدين والخلفاء المهديين، ويذكره بما عرفاه من أحاديث العشاق والمحبين في قرطبة وغيرها، بل يقدم له نفسه نموذجا عجيبا لتصاريف الحب وشؤونه. وأنا أصدق ابن حزم فيما يقول، لأنه منزه عن تعمد الكذب، حتى وأن كان غيره يتخذ مثل هذه التعلة مدخلا للتأليف،