According to the legend, Leyla and Qays were school friends who fell in love with each other. Leyla’s parents did not approve of the match, and forbade their daughter from marrying Quays despite seeing their true love.

The young man went into the wilderness, wretched with loss. He started to tell poetry of his love for Leyla to the animals and plants, and walk through the deserts. Eventually, he was given the name Mecnun, which means ‘possessed with madness’. His parents was very sorry for him . They didn’t approve their son’s decision but stil would leave food for him at the edge of the wilderness. There he roamed for years, driven mad by love.

Eventually, Leyla was married to another man. But she could not love him, and the marriage only served to deepen her sadness at the loss of her lover Mecnun. Soon she died of a broken heart.

When news of her death reached Mecnun, he travelled to the place she was buried, moving determinedly for the first time in years. When he found Leyla’s grave he wept, surrendering to his unimaginable grief. He took his life there, and died at the graveside of his lover Leyla.