- English translation
Give me the camels breaking wind on land over the fish chanting God's praises at sea.
- Literal wording
Camels' farting, and not the fishes' glorification of God.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying sets an overland journey, with the smells and noises of a camel caravan (al-bill is a rural dialect form of the word for camels), against a sea voyage. The land route's coarse discomforts are worth bearing, because hearing fish praise God, as all creatures are held to do, means being down among them: drowned.
More broadly, it voices a preference for a rough but dependable path over one that seems more refined or convenient yet carries a serious hazard. The humor lies in deliberately ranking a vulgar bodily sound above a pious one, simply because one belongs to safety and the other to death.
- When it is used
Fits a conversation about choosing a route or method: the speaker accepts a slow, uncomfortable, unglamorous option because it is safe, rather than one that looks finer but risks disaster. Because of its crude wording, it suits informal, joking talk more than polite company.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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