The Ring of the Dove (Arabic: طوق الحمامة, Ṭawq al-Ḥamāmah) is a treatise on love written ca. 1022 by Ibn Hazm. Normally a writer of theology and law, The Ring of the Dove is his only work of literature. Ibn Hazm borrowed heavily from Plato's Phaedrus, though the bulk of the work was still his own writing, rather than an anthology of other works. Although the human aspects of affection are the primary concern, the book was still written from the perspective of a devout Muslim, and as such chastity and restraint were common themes.
The book provides a glimpse into Ibn Hazm's own psychology. Ibn Hazm's teenage infatuation with one of his family's maids is often quoted as an example of the sort of chaste, unrequited love about which the author wrote.
The work has been published into English multiple times. A. R. Nykl of the Oriental Institute of Chicago translated the work, publishing in 1931 and A. J. Arberry's translation was published in 1951.
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“I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)