The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefwazi | Page 2

is taken from the work of Mohammed ben Djerir el Taberi; the description of the
different positions for coition, as well as the movements applicable to them, are borrowed
from Indian works; finally, the book Birds and Flowers by Azeddine el Mocadecci seems
to have been consulted with respect to the interpretation of dreams. But an author
certainly is to be commended for having surrounded himself with the lights of former
savants, and it would be ingratitude not to acknowledge the benefit which his books have
conferred upon people who were still in their infancy in the art of love.
It is only to be regretted that this work, so complete in many respects, is defective in so
fir as it makes no mention of a custom too common with the Arabs not to deserve
particular attention. I speak of the taste so universal with the old Greeks and Romans,
namely, the preference they give to a boy before a woman, or even to treat the latter as a
boy.
There might have been given on this subject sound advice as well with regard to the
pleasures mutually enjoyed by the women called tribades. The same reticence has been

observed by the author with regard to bestiality. Nevertheless he does speak, in one story
(i.e. 'The History of Zohra', in the concluding chapter of the work), of the mutual caresses
of women; and he relates an anecdote concerning a woman who provoked the caresses of
an ass [which has been eliminated from the present edition], thus revealing that he knew
of such matters.
Lastly, the Sheikh does not mention the pleasures which the mouth or the hand of a pretty
woman can give, nor the cunnilinges.
What may have been the motive for these omissions? The author's silence cannot be
attributed to ignorance, for in the course of his work he has given proofs of an erudition
too extended and various to permit a suspicion of his knowledge.
Should we look for the cause of this gap to the contempt which the Mussulman in reality
feels for woman, and owing to which he may think that it would be degrading to his
dignity as a man to descend to caresses otherwise regulated than by the laws of nature?
Or did the author, perhaps, avoid the mention of similar matters out of fear that he might
be suspected of sharing tastes which many people look upon as depraved?
However this may be, the book contains much useful information and a large number of
curious cases, and I have undertaken the translation because, as the Sheikh Nefzaoui says
in his preamble: 'I swear before God, certainly! the knowledge of this book is necessary.
It will be only the shamefully ignorant, the enemy of all science, who does not read it, or
who turns it into ridicule.'
INTRODUCTION
General Remarks about Coition
PRAISE BE GIVEN TO God, who has placed man's greatest pleasure in the natural parts
of woman, and has destined the natural parts of man to afford the greatest enjoyment to
woman.
He has not endowed the parts of woman with any pleasurable or satisfactory feeling until
the same have been penetrated by the instrument of the male; and likewise the sexual
organs of man know neither rest nor quietness until they have entered those of the female.
Hence the mutual operation. There takes place between the two actors wrestling,
intertwinings, a kind of animated conflict. Owing to the contact of the lower parts of the
two bellies, the enjoyment soon comes to pass. The man is at work as with a pestle, while
the woman seconds him by lascivious movements; finally comes the ejaculation.
The kiss on the mouth, on the two cheeks, upon the neck, as well as the sucking up of
flesh lips, are gifts of God, destined to provoke erection at the favourable moment. God
also is it who has embellished the chest of the woman with breasts, has furnished her with
a double chin, and has given brilliant colours to her cheeks.
He has also gifted her with eyes that inspire love, and with eyelashes like polished blades.

He has furnished her with a rounded belly and a beautiful navel, and with a majestic
crupper; and all these wonders are borne up by the thighs. It is between these latter that
God has placed the arena of the combat; when the same is provided with ample flesh, it
resembles the head of a lion. It is called the vulva. Oh! how many men's deaths lie at her
door? Amongst them how many heroes!
God has furnished this object with a mouth, a tongue, two lips; it is like the impression of
the hoof of the gazelle in the sands of the desert.
The whole is supported by two