Revealing The Other Sides of Syaikh al-Nafzawi's Eroctic Anecdotes

Abstract

Al-Rawd al-‘Atir fi Nuzhat al-Khatir (The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight), by  Syaikh Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi, a Muslim philosopher from  Tunisia, has not yet been published in a complete version by any publishers in the Arabic countries since the end of the 15th Century due to the fact that this book is considered sluttish. The Arabians’ opinions regarding this book are varied. Some appreciate the writer’s honesty and openness, due to describing personal matters, such as a sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. Others are disappointed because of its popular writing styles and poor marketing interests. Some others criticize the ways of medical matters in the text although the suggestions in the text are not imaginary ones. This paper analyzes the book from its other aspects, i.e. its form and types of anecdotes. This paper found out that the anecdotes of al-Nafzawi tend to fictive and this fact leads us not to use the book as the reference for sex education. In additions, the story of the book describes the vulgar sexual intercourse more than sex education itself. This can be considered a sluttish story.