- English translation
Better to burn with your own kin than to live in paradise with a stranger.
- Literal wording
The fire of the relative, and not the paradise of the stranger.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying states a firm preference for a relative over a stranger. By ranking the relative's fire above the stranger's paradise, it holds that kin should be chosen over an outsider even when the comparison seems to favor the outsider.
The line is built as two balanced halves, each pairing a place with a person, and the rhyme between the Arabic words for relative and stranger, qarīb and gharīb, is lost in English.
- When it is used
Suitable when someone chooses, or urges choosing, a relative over an outsider, for instance in deciding whom to rely on, deal with, or join, even though the outsider appears to offer more.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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