The story is told of a king who summoned Majnun before him. ‘What is wrong with you?’ he inquired. ‘What has happened, what has befallen you? You have disgraced yourself, forsaken your heart and home, kith and kin, become wasted and gone to rack and ruin.
Who is this Layla? What beauty is hers? Come, I will show you many beautiful and lovely girls –they are all yours! –I shall give them to you.’ When they had brought to court and the beauties were all revealed to Majnun, he merely lowered his head, casting his eyes down and stared morosely at the ground. ‘Well now,’ the king commanded, ‘lift up your head and look at them!’ ‘I am afraid,’ Majnun replied. ‘My love for Layla is like a drawn sword. If I raise my head it will be cut off.’ Such was his absorption and his love for Layla. The others too had eyes and lips and noses. What then had he seen in Layla that made him the way he was? What had he beheld in her that brought him to such a state?

-Jalal al-Din Rumi