I wish handwritten letters were still a thing. I know now it’s considered old fashioned, but I can’t think of anything sweeter or more thoughtful than a man pouring his heart out to his loved one in a handwritten letter that can last forever!
Love letters that are written in Arabic, in my opinion, are deeper, more meaningful and richer, especially when it comes to expressing one’s feelings for another. Despite our unfamiliarity with this very charming gesture, there was actually a time when writing love letters was the only way to win someone over.
I’m the absolute definition of “a helpless romantic” who falls in love with words, especially if they were sincere, so I thought why not share with you my favorite love letters that were written by poets, writers, artists and singers. Get ready to fall in love!
Al-Bab Al Maftouh (The open door) Letter from Hussein to Laila
“I don’t want you to be dependent on me or anyone else. I want you to have your own independent entity, with a self-confidence to emit from inside of you. This is how you achieve happiness…”
Hussein to Laila
Suzanne Brisseau’s letter on Taha Hussein’s passing
I would like to tell you my distress when I left the ship and returned to Cairo when I immediately returned to the house and went to our bedroom, and I kissed the rose, and covered with kisses the photo which I cannot see…It is impossible for me to think of anything other than you. I cannot help crying each time I go into the bedroom; I find you everywhere there without finding you anywhere… The rose has already wilted…I’d say that I’m in Cairo for nothing. I’m in the process of wasting three months of my life. Working? But what’s the good of working without your voice which encourages and counsels me, without your presence which guides me? In whom can I confide freely? You’ll tell me: ‘you must write to me’. But you know well that writing is not like speaking, and that reading a letter is not hearing one’s voice. And you know well, that many times I don’t say anything, I just take your hand, I put my head on your shoulder… Three months, three months, it’s horrifying, I woke up into a terrifying blackness; I had to write to you in order for that to begin to dissipate. You see, absent or present, you are always my light.
S. Taha Hussein.
Love letters between Cleopatra and Antony
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies.
Antony on Cleopatra
Love Letters between Gibran Khalil Gibran and Mary Haskell
I wish I could tell you, beloved Mary, what your letters mean to me. They create a soul in my soul. I read them as messages from life. Somehow they always come when I need them most, and they always bring that element which makes us desire more days and more nights and more life. Whenever my heart is bare and quivering, I feel the terrible need of someone to tell me that there is a tomorrow for all bare and quivering hearts and you always do it, Mary.
one of his first letters to Haskell
Oum Kalthoum Serat Elhob
You who disparaged love, and badmouthed it over and over and said I don’t know what… The defect is in you or in your lovers… But love, oh my soul… In all the world there is nothing sweeter than love… We become tired, we are defeated, we complain, but we continue to love..
Lyrics by Mursi jamil Aziz