In the long literary history of the Middle East, the notion of 'the beloved' has been a central trope in both the poetry and prose of the region. This book explores the concept of the beloved in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary manner, revealing how shared ideas on the subject supersede geographical and temporal boundaries, and ideas of nationhood. The book considers the beloved in its classical, modern and postmodern manifestations, taking into account the different sexual orientations and forms of desire expressed. From the pre-Islamic 'Udhri (romantic unrequited love), to the erotic same-sex love in thirteenth century poetry and prose, the divine Sufi reflections on the topic, and post-revolutionary love encounters in Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, The Beloved in Middle Eastern Literatures connects the affective and cultural with the political and the obscene. In focusing on the diverse manifestations of love and tropes of the lover/beloved binary, this book is unique in foregrounding what is often regarded as a 'taboo subject' in the region.
The multi-faceted outlook reveals the variety of philological, philosophical, poetic and literary forms that treat this significant motif.

Alireza Korangy has been Assistant Professor of Classical Persian and Contemporary Iranian Linguistics at the University of Virginia and has taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2007 and is currently the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Persian Literature and acting president of Societas Philologica Persica. His recent books include Development of the Ghazal and Khaqani's Contribution: A Study of the Development of Ghazal and a Literary Exegesis of a 12th c. Poetic Harbinger (2013) and an edited volume, Essays in Islamic Philology, History, and Philosophy (2016). Hanadi Al-Samman is an associate professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Anxiety of Erasure: Trauma, Authorship, and the Diaspora in Arab Women's Writings (2015) and has published in the Journal of Arabic Literature; Women's Studies International Forum; and Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics. She is co-editor of "Queer Affects" a special issue of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.Michael C. Beard is Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of Peace Studies at the University of North Dakota. He is co-editor of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures and is editor for the monograph series Middle East Literature in Translation. He publishes frequently on Arabic and Persian literatures, as well as translating works of literature. He has won the Lois Roth Award for a Translation of a Literary Work.