Ahmad al-Tifashi whose full name is Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbās Aḥmad ibn Yusuf al-Ḳaysi al-Tifachi[1] (Arabic: أحمد بن يوسف القيسي التيفاشي),[2] born in Tifash, a village near Gafsa in Tunisia (1184 – died 1253 in Cairo) was an Arabic poet, writer, and anthologist, best known for his work A Promenade of the Hearts (نزهة الألباب).
He compiled A Promenade of the Hearts, a 12-chapter anthology of Arabic poetry and jokes about erotic and sexual practices, that featured both heterosexual and homoerotic entries with a bias towards the latter.
A French translation by René R. Khawam, based on an Arabic copy held in Paris, was published as Les Délices des cœurs par Ahmad al-Tifachi (1971 and 1981).
A scholarly translation by Edward A. Lacey of the homoerotic sections was published in English as The Delight of Hearts, or What You Will Not Find In Any Book (1988).
This version won a Lambda Literary Award in 1989. al-Tifashi also wrote several treatises concerned with sexual hygiene, one of which is preserved in a copy at The National Library of Medicine.