Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī -- better known as Ibn Hazm -- lived in Andalusia, Spain, between 994 and 1064 (except for a period of exile in Mallorca after 1040.)
He wrote a book about love in 1022 under the suggestive title The Ring of the Dove. I don't know if he had read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, but I sense an echo of the latter's reflections about friendship in the learned Arab's text.
Here is a part that captivated me.
”The noblest sort of Love is that which exists between persons who love each other in God either because of an identical zeal for the righteous work upon which they are engaged, or as the result of a harmony in sectarian belief and principles, or by virtue of a common possession of some noble knowledge. Next to this is the love, which springs from kinship; then the love of familiarity and the sharing of identical aims; the love of comradeship and acquaintance; the love, which is rooted in a benevolent regard for one's fellow; the love that results from coveting the loved one's worldly elevation; the love that is based upon a shared secret which both must conceal; love for the sake of getting enjoyment and satisfying desire; and passionate love, that has no other cause but that union of souls to which we have referred above.
All these varieties of Love come to an end when their causes disappear, and increase or diminish with them; they are intensified according to the degree of their proximity, and grow languid as their causes draw further and further away. The only exception is the Love of true passion, which has the mastery of the soul: this is the love, which passes not away save with death.”
(The Ring of the Dove, Ibn Hazm)
Note to the illustration: Manuscript to The Ring of the Dove can be found in the Leiden University Library.
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