"You commissioned me - may God honor you - to compile a treatise for you about the nature of love, its meanings, its causes, and its symptoms, and what happens to it, and to it as a matter of truth, not to add or elaborate, but to provide a source of what is present to me in its face, and according to its occurrence, since my memorization and breadth of what I remember have ended, so I began To what you desire, and if I had not agreed to it, I would not have undertaken it, for this is nonsense, and it is better for us, despite the shortness of our lives, not to spend it except in what we hope to welcome the turning point, and a good return tomorrow, and what you have assigned me must mention what I witnessed, and my care perceived, and trustworthy people told me about. My time, so forgive me for referring to names, for they are either a private matter that we do not allow to be revealed, or we are preserving in that a friendly friend and a noble man. It is sufficient for me to name someone who is not harmed in naming him, and who is named does not cause us any shame in mentioning him, either for the sake of fame which does not suffice for mentioning it and not explaining it Because the informant was satisfied with the appearance of his news, and there was little denial on his part about transmitting it, I will cite in this letter poems that I said in what I saw, so do not deny me, and whoever sees them, that I am taking a path in them that imitates the hadith from himself, for this is the doctrine of those who adore poetry, and more than that, my brothers force me to say what he presents. They have their own ways and doctrines. It is enough for me that I remember what was shown to me that is similar to what I am inclined toward and is attributed to me."
