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"عيناك نافذتان على حلم لا يجيء وفي كل حلم أرمّم حلما و أحلم" ..
"Your eyes are like windows on a dream that doesn't come in, but every dream I restore a dream and dream..
This quote is a famous quote by Mahmoud Darweesh. In this quote, the poet expresses to his beloved that when he dreams he saw her, and he can sense the feelings of love and hope by looking into  her eyes. And every time he restores the
dream so that he can see her again.
Rawan

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مضناك احمد شوقي / Modnak by Ahmad Shawqi 

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مضناك احمد شوقي / Modnak by Ahmad Shawqi 

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Khadra Hogerat

بَيني في الحُبِّ وَبَينَكَ ما

لا يَقدِرُ واشٍ يُفسِدُهُ

ما بالُ العاذِلِ يَفتَحُ لي

بابَ السُلوانِ وَأوصِدُهُ

وَيَقولُ تَكادُ تُجَنُّ بِهِ

فَأَقولُ وَأوشِكُ أَعبُدُهُ

مَولايَ وَروحي في يَدِهِ

قَد ضَيَّعَها سَلِمَت يَدُهُ
ناقوسُ القَلبِ يَدُقُّ لَهُ

وَحَنايا الأَضلُعِ مَعبَدُهُ

“Between you and I in love

is that which no slanderer can spoil.

Why does the naysayer open for me

the door for forgetting you and I shut it?

And he says "you are almost mad with him"

so I say: "rather, I almost worship him"

My lord, and my soul is in his hands.

He has wasted it, blessed be his hands.

The bells of my heart ring for him,

and the depths within my ribs are his temple.”

Translation by Ibn Omar
—- I choose this beautiful poem that was performed by many big Arab singers  and originally written by the Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi. The translation does not do its words justice and every time I hear it or even read it I feel many emotions all at once. The “love” expressed by the poem seems to be out of this world as he worships his lover.  He actually starts the poem by expressing his bad health state as he is almost going to die because his lover abandoned him.and his heart beats rapidly when he thinks of her. I absolutely love this poem.

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Love is a complicated experience that can often include pain and persist even after the separation. People can struggle to forget those whom they loved and may suffer in the process of moving on. In this song, the speaker expresses complex feelings of loving someone and missing the suffering their lover used to inflict on them. We believe that love is beautiful and should not revolve around suffering and pain. However, we have to acknowledge that at some point in our lives, we might have gone through a painful/ toxic love experience. The important thing is to embrace ourselves and be kind to ourselves. By the way, this is a really good song.
Basma and Gaith

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Ahwak - Abdel Halim Hafez اهواك - عبد الحليم حافظ

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A song that talks about wanting to be with the one you love even through the pain and suffering. Showing how deep-rooted the love is.
أهواك وأتمنى لو أنساك
وأنسى روحي وياك
وإن ضاعت يبقى فداك لو تنساني
وأنساك وتريني بأنسى جفاك
وأشتاق لعذابي معاك
وألقى دموعي فاكراك أرجع تاني
I adore you and wish could forget you
Forget my soul with you
And I shall loose it with you
I miss suffering with you
My tears miss you and I find myself coming back

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Ahwak - Abdel Halim Hafez اهواك - عبد الحليم حافظ

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"Love is not an idea, it is an emotion that heats and cools and comes and goes. An emotion that is embodied in shape and body, has five senses and more. Sometimes it descends on us in the form of night dew when a magical hand milks a stray cloud. Love has an expiration date as well as age and canned goods and medicines. But I prefer that love will make me fall with a heart attack in the midst of lust and passion, as a horse falls from a mountain to an abyss."  -Mahmoud Darwish
I think this could be a representation of love in my culture, it is more complicated than a mere thought and seems to be as a chemical reaction (these five emotions he mentioned are the way our body responds to the person that we are in love with)
Love is also dangerous and we know it but still decide to go along and risk it all which I think is some sort of addiction.

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The poem "אדבר איתך" by Rachel Shapira - Merav Ofir

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The poem "אדבר איתך" by Rachel Shapira - Merav Ofir

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A link to the lyrics:
https://shironet.mako.co.il/artist?type=lyrics&lang=1&prfid=383&wrkid=33

The poem is a woman's loving appeal to her lover. The lover is sad, and emotionally sealed. He is quiet and doesn't talk to her, probably because of his pain. The woman
calls him to let her be his comfort, to let her talk to him while he is sad and afraid. She tells him that she can stand it, and he should let his thorns scratch her feet.
Some conventions about love, are that a man is a tormented creature, and she should heal him.

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שירונט- אתר המוזיקה הגדול בישראל הכולל מילים לשירים בעברית, מילים לשירים באנגלית וקליפי יוטיוב. מאגר מילות שירים מסגנונות מוזיקליים שונים: מוזיקה מזרחית, מוסיקה ים תיכונית, רוק, פופ, היפ הופ, ג'אז, בלוז, שירה בציבור, ארץ ישראל הישנה והטובה, שירי חתונה, שירי אהבה, אקורדים לשירים לועזיים ועבריים. יכול כי בשוגג נפלו טעויות במילות השירים. האתר אינו נושא באחריות כי מילות השירים מדויקות, וככל שהנך מזה/ה טעות במילות מי מהשירים אנא דווחו לנו על כך ואנו נתקן את הטעות.

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מילים לשיר אדבר איתך - חוה אלברשטיין

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שירונט- אתר המוזיקה הגדול בישראל הכולל מילים לשירים בעברית, מילים לשירים באנגלית וקליפי יוטיוב. מאגר מילות שירים מסגנונות מוזיקליים שונים: מוזיקה מזרחית, מוסיקה ים תיכונית, רוק, פופ, היפ הופ, ג'אז, בלוז, שירה בציבור, ארץ ישראל הישנה והטובה, שירי חתונה, שירי אהבה, אקורדים לשירים לועזיים ועבריים. יכול כי בשוגג נפלו טעויות במילות השירים.

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I chose the song -The love of my youth by Shalom Hanoch (lines 5-8):

I was a child, day dreaming,
Playing and singing
On days imagining you listening
To the first song in my life.

This song represents a teenage unfulfilled first love.

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Fairouz is one of the most famous female singers in the middle east who dared to publicly sing about love in a male-dominated community. In this sing, she expresses her love, or perhaps a regret, for an unknown person who left her alone.

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Fairuz - Kefak Enta - With English Subtitles

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This song is a represention of love between two people that are called Qays and Layla.
Qays told layla those words as poetry and
later on it was created into a song.
Qays could not marry Layla because their parents where enemies, but still that did not stop him from loving her.
Basically what Qays tells Layla is
"Have you fell in love or you had been thrown with arrows?

This is indeed the nature of a lover

Come on let's drink and sing for me

Mentioning "Sulaima" , while you play violin

You who is mentioning (Al-Amiriya)

I get jealous when someone mentions her name

I get jealous of her clothes

when they touch her softened body

I feel jealous from her father and mother

If they whispered in her ears

I envy the glasses that kiss her mouth

When she drinks
I think that
Qays summarized to us what is love, and that it is the mixture of the primary feelings that we have mentioned.

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I chose a poem called "Layla and Majnoun" (Layla's Mad Lover) because it is almost the Arabic version of Romeo and Juliet. The story of Layla and Majnoun goes back to the 7th century and was passed down through generations of Arabs, Persians, and Turkish.
The narrative poem about this story was composed by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi.
In the story, Layla and Qays fell madly in love ever since they were young. However, Layla's father did not approve of this love. Therefore, Qays begins to compose his love poems about Layla. He becomes so obsessive with love that people call him Majnoun (Mad).
One of his poems was turned into a song by the great Wadeea Alsafi. I grew up learning about love from this poem.
I quote the first lines
" The night, oh Layla, reproaches me

and it tells me to give you my regards, Layla

the love's breezes is not sweet

unless it sings for Layla "

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This true story is about an old lady and her pas lover who passed away in the palestanian war in 1948. She talks about how they communicated in letters which they left under a stone in their land. I think that this represents love in my culture as it combines death and love of the land with romantic love.

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mohannad Abu Rizk (@mohannad.aburizk)

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I chose The painting "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt. It portrays a man and a woman during an intimant moment as he kisses the woman on her cheek . The woman does not look at the man, and has a sad look on her face as if this moment would not last forever. As observerse we don't know the relationship between them as it can be unfulfield love or perhaps lust.

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Someone to support, trust, and rely on.
Romantic love does not necessarily have to mean grand gestures. Love can be found in simple things, like helping each other around the house for example - sharing life equally and making sure both partners are comfortable.

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Manar:
First is the possibility of meeting randomly then it goes into a matchmaking sessions of some sort.
Second it can purely be matchmaking from the mothers of the respective bride and groom.
Third it can be arranged marriage.
Basically my culture is based on old beliefs of matchmaking and arrangements, however, as we are advancing and its the 21th century, the western influence brought an impact and normal dating is incorporated slowly. Quite frankly, love comes later in the older possibilities.

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Get Lost/Kanye West

I still get lost in the night
Lost in my dreaming time
Memories back from fine
Back to get all my time
I still get lost, what's mine?
Memories back from time
All my thoughts on at night
All my life's on the line
I still get lost in the night
Memories back from mine
'Member we had one night?
'Member we had the night?
I still get lost sometimes
Memories haunting mind
'Member we had the mind?
'Member we had the mind?
I'm gon' get lost sometimes
'Member we cry sometimes
I went through fine, oh, fine
When you was mine, all mine
Somehow we got to meet
Now I keep to darker streets
F****d up without the love
Parker without the cleats
F****d up and on repeat
Above the night I beat
I done went back to sleep
What a new sight to see
What do you write for me?
What will fit right for me?
I did what's right for me
I fought from fighting me
Well, I would like to see
I still get lost sometimes
Far from my state of mind
Stay on the vibes alright
When do I cross your mind?
When do you see my pride?
I've got a Pablo shine
Pride is the number line
Okay, well, never mind
Okay, then, never mind
Do I still cross your mind?
If not, then, never mind
If not, then, never mind

This song from Kanye West's "Donda 2" portrays some of the conventions of love in our time. Kanye focuses on the memories that he shares with his ex-wife. The reminiscence of former relationship is, in my opinion, a part of what love is. As we discussed, love is a complex emotion – it can be represented by the fear for the wellbeing of your partner, of the anxiety of them leaving you. In this song, Kanye shows that although love can be .complicated for some, for him it is simple

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Bloom- The Paper Kites

In the morning when I wake
And the sun is coming through
Oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness
And you fill my head with you

Shall I write it in a letter?
Shall I try to get it down?
Oh, you fill my head with pieces
Of a song I can't get out

Can I be close to you?

Can I take it to a morning
Where the fields are painted gold
And the trees are filled with memories
Of the feelings never told?

When the evening pulls the sun down
And the day is almost through
Oh, the whole world it is sleeping
But my world is you

Can I be close to you?
2011

Romantic love in the 21st century is a social construct made of conevntions we meet within the media, culture and community. In my opinion, romantic love is a well constructed myth we consume from western media that follows specific conventions:
A consuming and overwhelming feeling of warmth and happiness towards somwone. "...fill my lungs with sweetness \ and you fill my head with you.."
full dedication to one person (monogamy). "But my world is you"
The need to make soneone happy and cared for. "Can i take you in the morning / Where the field are painted gold?"
Somtheing irrational and uncontrollable. "...you fill my head with pieces/ Of a song I can't get out"
The extreme need to be emotionally and physically close to someone. "Can i be close to you?"

P.s:  if you wouls like to see a different non conventional approach to romantic love, i would reccomend:
CAER - Written & Directed by Robert Kouba
https://amberliquidambar.tumblr.com/post/143392892949/in-solitude-you-found-me-formless-like-a-memory

Yael Atlas

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The Paper Kites - Bloom (Official Music Video)

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Maha Hodrobi: When I love you - Nizzar Qabbani
"When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe."
I chose this poem because Qabbani is very known to deliberately express his emotions of love to his lover in his poetry. in his poem "when I love you" he tells his lover how he loves her in many different ways. I quoted a few lines from this poem in which he showed when he loves her his nation becomes a rebel against repression to take their right, so loving her is equal to loving his nation.

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When I love you
A new language springs up,
New cities, new countries discovered.
The hours breathe like puppies,
Wheat grows between the pages of books,
Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey,
Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs,
The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire
And Nubian drums beat.

When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,
Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.
When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.
And I, when I love you,
March against ugliness,
Against the kings of salt,
Against the institutionalization of the desert.
And I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives;
I shall continue to love you untill the world flood arrives.

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When I Love You - Nizar Qabbani - My poetic side

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When I love you A new language springs up, New cities, new countries discovered. The hours breathe like puppies, Wheat grows between the pages of books, Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey, Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs, The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire And Nubian drums beat.

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I saw this dance the other day and think it is a good representation of what we are discussing. you can picture this dance how you like because it has more than one meaning, I saw it as a representation of women in our culture; we hear all about these cases of physical "love" and how women often don't get understood. love doesn't have to always be a good idea. it is black and white.
noor shwai

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Charli D'Amelio and Mark Ballas Contemporary (Week 5) | Dancing With The Stars on Disney+

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SVETA: Once, we were discussing romantic love and arranged marriage with my Indian friend Veena. To us, the westerners, it seemed that the arranged marriage, basically a contract between two total strangers made by their parents, contradicted the romantic aspect of love. Veena said, that in Indian culture one's spouse is likened to one's own face. When you are born, she said, you don't choose your face. You see your face in the mirror, and you gradually get used to it and accept it. You can't get rid of your face, even if you don't like it initially. So, you'd better learn to love it. That metaphor explains the Indian notion of romantic love, which is love that grows and unfolds after many years of being together, not before that.

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Hallmark movie cliches--story-lines such as the big city CEO woman comes to a small town/hometown and finds a partner who teaches her not just to live for her work, or just when the music swells it begins to snow, signalling the beauty of a new beginning, fresh white snow flaking down, emphasizing the magic of family and community in a time that represents coziness and community (as Christmas tends to represent in the USA/Western Culture).

The "Oh." moment in literature. The moment when a person realizes their love as an internal "Oh." It's a symbol of how they've been in love this whole time and just realize it now, and emphasizes the inevitability of love. "Oh." it's you, "Oh." it's always been you, etc.

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"Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair

Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks"

from: Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road

These lines both represents a universal idea of "the two of us is all we need and we can take on the entire world together" as well as the very American romanticism of the open road, the car trip that "take us anywhere" which transcends romantic love to themes of friendship and comradery from Butch and Sundance to Thelma and Louise and beyond. These ideas can be wildly found in western popular culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2X0Gf9jfz8

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This song is a good representation of love, love is a confession its a lot of emotions at once. And i think with this short song you can feel the overflowing emotions that come with love.