In medieval Arabic literary culture, stories and poetry about pleasure are both an escape from the serious business of politics, the military, and religion and an indirect commentary on this serious business. Stories and poetry about pleasure often articulate experience through the description of things, bodies, and/or locations. Writers and poets amplify material life to express the refinement and emotion of manners with moral authority in the background. In his Kitab al-Diyarat (Book of Monasteries), the 4th/10th century writer al-Shabushti links the description of monasteries in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt to stories about the people who frequented them. Though their books on monasteries are not extant, the collected poetry by al-Sari al-Raffa' al-Mawsili and the Khalidi brothers, and by other descriptive poets of the 4th/10th century, contain descriptive poems about monasteries that complement the stories and poetry in al-Shabushti's book. The book has been used as a source on Christianity. The focus of this project is, instead, the dynamics of pleasure and politics as they take shape through the interweaving of stories and poetry. It places al-Shabushti's book in the context of other monographic compilations from the 4th/10th century that also explore the dynamics of politics and pleasure in prose and poetry, including Kushajim's Kitab al-Masayid wal-Matarid (Book of Snares and Spears) and the Khalidi brothers' Kitab al-Tuhaf wal-Hadaya(Book of Rarities and Gifts). This project argues that monographic compilations on the pleasure scene, on topics such as gift exchange, hunting for sport, and drinking at monasteries, represent an expanding cultural sphere that provides an alternative to the serious business of politics, the military, and religion. The two compilations of al-Tanukhi and the maqamas (series of narratives in rhymed prose) of al-Hamadhani, also from the 4th/10th century, have received a great deal of attention as developments of literary expression. Stories about the pleasure scene share with al-Tanukhi's stories an interest in historical characters. This project shows that stories about aspects of the pleasure scene, alongside the work of al-Tanukhi and al-Hamadhani, are a crucial development of literary expression in medieval Arabic culture. The project draws on research by Ali Ibrahim Abu Zayd, Samer Ali, Julia Bray, Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa, Sami Dahhan, Andras Hamori, Habib al-Hasani, Phillip Kennedy, James Montgomery, Shawkat Toorawa, and Katia Zakharia. The analysis makes use of theoretical perspectives of Bakhtin, de Certeau, and de Lauretis.