“The Arabian scholar and mystic, Ibn Sina (980 – 1037), declared that ‘romantic love (al’-ishaq) is not peculiar to the human species but permeates all things, heavenly, elemental, vegetable and mineral, and its sense is neither perceived nor known; it is rendered even more obscure by the explanations made to account for it.”

Mircea Eliade, ”The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy”