I love my cousin

The immortal stories of Al-Hashb between Qays and his cousin Layla, between Urwa and Al-Afra, and before them, Antarah and Abla, were not only tales of love, recounting within their pages and in their conversations timeless examples of the poetry of lovers, the attachment of hearts, and the loss of hopes. Rather, they also presented images of social life and family relationships among the Arabs; they were far more profound, deeper, and more deeply rooted than that.

These love stories combined true love and bitter deprivation, and were then immortalized in poetry. However, they would not have survived and lived on in our hearts if Layla had been forced to marry Qays, or if she had been "reserved" for him from the day she was conceived, or if the relationship between them had been nothing more than a follow-up to a social custom adhered to by their tribe across generations.

How often do fathers ask when their daughter is engaged to her cousin, or young men wanting to marry their maternal aunt's daughter, or girls engaged to their paternal cousin—and they have every right to ask—whether there is harm in marriage between relatives?

In this book, we try to read the story of the man and his cousin, away from the rumors that surrounded it, whether exaggerated or shortened, to look at this unique relationship objectively and scientifically, until we reach a clear understanding of the question that is still being asked: Is the harm from marriage between relatives greater than its benefits?