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Arabic · Arabic scriptProverb: Verified

«قَالُوا: يَا جُحَا، إِمْتَى تْقُومِ الْقِيَامَهْ؟ قَالْ: لَمَّا أَمُوتْ أَنَا»

Meanings

Each meaning is reviewed on its own.

Meaning: Verified
English translation

Asked when Judgment Day would arrive, Juha answered, 'The day I die.'

Literal wording

They said: 'O Juha, when will the Resurrection come?' He said: 'When I myself die.'

Meaning and lesson

The saying mocks a person whose sense of what matters begins and ends with himself. To Juha, the familiar comic figure of Arabic folk anecdotes, the Day of Resurrection, a collective end of the world, is simply the moment of his own death. Whatever might happen to everyone else afterward does not even register as a question worth considering.

It is aimed at someone who is indifferent to the welfare of others and judges events only by how they touch him. The humor comes from Juha shrinking a vast, shared, cosmic event into a purely private matter, exposing self-centeredness through absurd logic.

When it is used

Use it to tease or criticize someone who shows no concern for what happens to others, especially when their attitude implies that nothing matters once they are gone. The folk-humor framing suits wry, pointed remarks better than solemn rebuke.

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Colloquial, humorous
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