Arabic proverbs

Lion or hyena? Which one is it?

Spoken to someone who has just turned up carrying news, the question asks what that news amounts to. It offers two alternatives and invites the newcomer to name whichever one applies, so the listener learns the gist before hearing the full account.

Only the person who witnessed it should describe it.

Reporting an event is treated here as the job of an eyewitness. Firsthand sight is what gives someone the standing to recount what happened, and that standing does not pass to people who were absent from the scene.

Words dinned into someone's ears, again and again, work more powerfully than magic.

The saying claims that urging a person over and over, keeping the same words sounding in their ears, has a stronger hold on them than any sorcery could; sorcery serves only as a yardstick of strength, not a literal claim about magic. Its force lies in persistence rather than in the strength of any single statement.

Asking for handouts works like alchemy.

The proverb claims that living off handouts can make a person rich in a way that seems almost magical. The image is alchemy, not chemistry as a science: alchemists dreamed of turning cheap metal into gold or silver, and the beggar likewise turns simple requests, which cost nothing, into money.

Every beard has a comb to suit it.

The saying uses an ordinary grooming image: each beard is paired with a comb suited to it. From this it draws a general principle that every thing, person, or situation has its own fitting counterpart or remedy. What suits one case will not necessarily suit another.

Better to start the day at the bean stall than at the perfume shop.

The saying sets the morning of the bean seller, who sells slow-simmered breakfast fava beans, above that of the attar, here a perfume seller rather than a druggist, because a hungry person at dawn wants breakfast far more than fragrance. Plain necessity comes ahead of refinement.

God gives so much to the weak that even the strong stand amazed.

The saying, whose unnamed giver is understood to be God, holds that He can lift up the feeble, granting strength or fortune to someone everyone had written off. The gift arrives after hope seems exhausted, and it grows until the powerful look on in astonishment, perhaps even with envy.

A partner who goes against you — may he neither live nor last.

The saying condemns a partner who works against the one he is joined with, not one who merely holds a different view, and it does more than criticize: it calls down misfortune on him. A partnership depends on agreement, so a contrary partner is treated as a burden whose continued existence the speaker wishes away.

Keep on scratching and you'll raise sores that won't heal.

The saying pictures a person who keeps scratching an itch until the skin breaks out in malignant sores that refuse to heal; here البلا names those bodily eruptions, not abstract trouble. Relief pursued without restraint turns a passing annoyance into a real affliction.

Raising it yourself gives you an advantage over buying it.

In its traditional framing, the proverb favors raising or cultivating something oneself over buying it ready-made: firsthand care brings knowledge of its history and fewer unknowns, so the slower path is presented as more dependable.

The vulture welcomes whatever the wolf does.

The saying points to a relationship in which one party profits from another’s harmful conduct. The vulture is content because the wolf’s kill leaves something for it, even though the victim bears the loss.

Told to wash the dead man and wrap a turban around his head, he answered: "My job is washing the dead. Am I supposed to guarantee them Paradise as well?"

Someone is asked to wash a dead man for burial and wind a turban around his head, as if this dressing of the body might secure him a place in Paradise. The washer indignantly protests that his trade is preparing the corpse, not deciding its fate. The saying refuses blame for outcomes beyond one's work and power.

Women are a bent sickle. Came the answer: if it weren't bent, it couldn't bring in the crop.

The proverb opens with a familiar complaint that women are bent or devious, then a reply turns it around through the image of a sickle. A curved harvesting blade only works because it bends; a straight one would gather nothing. The supposed flaw becomes what lets the tool function.

Every pond has its own heron.

The image is of a heron, a wading bird closely tied to water, turning up at every pond. Just as each pool appears to have its own heron, every place has people who live there, know it well, and are at home in it.

Even the finest person is never entirely flawless.

Here زين means someone fine or good-looking, not the personal name Zain. The saying holds that no person who is truly fine, whether in appearance or in character, will turn out to be perfect in every respect. A single shortcoming is expected rather than surprising.

The axe has struck the head; now the quarrel cannot be avoided.

The image is of an axe that has already come down on someone's head: the wound exists and cannot be undone. The Arabic pairs al-fās (the axe) with ar-rās (the head) in a short end rhyme that gives the line its punch. Applied to quarrels, it marks the moment a clash becomes real and harm has been inflicted.

A noble soul honors even a moment's friendship.

The saying defines nobility of character by faithfulness. Its key word, often rendered 'free', carries the older sense of a freeborn or noble-spirited person, not liberty. A truly honorable person keeps faith with affection, however short-lived the acquaintance or modest the bond; the 'moment' stands for any brief or slight tie, not a literal span of time.

They made his rope out of his own beard.

The proverb describes a person whose affairs are handled entirely with what belongs to him. Just as a rope twisted from his own beard needs no outside fiber, his needs are supplied from his own stock, and nothing has to be brought in from elsewhere.

One of Abu Radi's folk: a brimming bread tray and an untroubled mind.

The saying sketches a person who belongs to the household of Abu Radi, a specific wealthy rural notable whose family was well known. The mishanna, the large woven bread tray, is always full at home, so this person never frets about the next meal, and their mind (al-sirr, here meaning inner state, not secret) stays calm.

When people remarked that blindness must be hard, the one-eyed man replied, 'I already know half the story.'

The saying describes someone who already knows part of a matter from personal experience. Told that total blindness is a hard fate, the one-eyed man answers that he already holds half the knowledge, since he has lost one eye. His partial share of the condition gives him a real, if incomplete, understanding.

Hidden finery lives in the waist cord and in the cap under the turban.

The saying locates a concealed kind of stylishness in two items nobody sees: the cord threaded through the waist of the trousers, which may be made of colored silk or similar fine material, and the light cloth cap worn beneath the turban to catch sweat, not a visible hat.

Like the Bedouins' sheep, spending the night chewing on nothing but their own runny noses.

The picture is of the flocks of desert-dwelling herders, not Arabs as a people, which find too little forage on sparse land to fill their bellies. At night they go on chewing the cud with nothing to show for it but the mucus running from their noses. The motion of eating continues while nourishment is absent.

Naked and shaking with cold, yet they spent their supper money on jasmine.

The image is of people with no clothes, trembling from the cold, who still take the money meant for their evening meal and buy fragrant jasmine with it. They choose a fleeting pleasure over food and warmth, the two things they lack most.

"Love me, and here's a robe for you!" Is love something to be won with a club?!

The saying ridicules efforts to obtain love by outside means. It sets an offered gift, a woolen robe, next to the image of a heavy stick, and asks whether love could ever be gained that way. The answer, left unspoken, is clearly no.

The one I fetched to ease my fear ended up giving me the fright.

At its core the saying captures help that backfires: a person called upon to get someone out of a predicament proves to be the very one who causes it. The expected remedy and the actual harm turn out to share a single source.

Someone who keeps mending their clothes does not let them become worn out.

Looking after possessions through small repairs keeps them serviceable. The saying values intervention before wear and damage are allowed to take over, using patched clothing as its concrete image.

What begins in secret will eventually come to light.

The proverb uses the image of a pregnancy that begins unseen at night but ends in a birth by day. Figuratively, it suggests that some matters, however privately they begin, are destined to become visible.

"My wife's mother is always picking fights!" "Then divorce her daughter."

The saying mocks a person who complains endlessly about a problem while the solution lies entirely in their own hands. A husband complains that his wife's mother is quarrelsome and stirs up trouble. The reply points out that his tie to her is his marriage, which he alone can end.

A tempting sweet with a dangerous creature lying close beside it.

The saying presents a plate of kunafa, a sweet pastry, with a large serpent beside it. Here the colloquial āfa means a great snake. The attractive dish stands for something desirable, while the snake represents the harm or trouble that may surround it.

Good news or bad?

A two-way question put to someone who has just arrived with news, asking them to say at once whether what they bring is welcome or unwelcome. The two grains simply stand for the two possible answers; what matters is which way things went.

Know where a deed will lead before you set your hand to it.

The saying urges foresight. A person should weigh where an action is likely to lead before committing to it, rather than discovering the results only after acting. Thinking ahead is presented as the sensible precondition for any undertaking.

"Why is your meat nothing but gristle and scraps?" "Because I bought it from a butcher I know."

The saying mocks the belief that knowing a seller personally guarantees fair treatment. Asked why his meat is full of gristle, scraps and offcuts, the buyer answers that it came from a butcher he knows personally. The irony is that the friendship that should have protected him is exactly why he was cheated.

His fine robes are enough to make up for the food he doesn't bring home.

A wife uses this line to stand up for a husband who dresses handsomely, in a caftan beneath an outer jubba, yet spends sparingly on the home. His full, respectable attire, she suggests, makes up for the cooked vegetables and meat he fails to provide for the household's meals, so outsiders should not fault him.

You take my husband, then act jealous of me—don’t flatter yourself that it makes you look good.

The saying condemns someone who intrudes upon another person’s rightful concern or relationship and then behaves as though the injured party were the problem. It stresses the audacity of causing harm while showing resentment, possessiveness, or impatience toward the person wronged.

Stick around one more day and fresh news will reach you.

Its opening imperative works as a condition rather than a literal order: if you live another day, you will hear news. Staying alive keeps exposing a person to things not heard before, so no one should assume they have heard everything. The end rhyme of نهار and أخبار gives the line a compact rhythm.

Weak at the job, sharp when it comes to the pay.

The saying describes someone whose effort and skill fall short while their demands for payment stay high. Its key word here means weak or poor in quality, not 'wailing' as in standard Arabic, nor its other colloquial sense of a lowly person living off others. It sets flimsy work beside a sharp instinct for collecting wages.

Like the holy fools, a new mood every hour.

The saying likens a fickle person to the majdhub, a figure seen as simple or unbalanced yet honored by many as a saint; English has no exact term, and 'holy fool' only approximates it. Such figures were known for erratic speech and behavior, so the comparison stresses constant, unpredictable changes of state.

The eye has someone watching over it.

The saying treats the eye, meaning the physical organ rather than the evil eye, as something under watch, as though a sentry stands over it. When the eye meets an accident or injury and comes through lightly, the speaker credits this to a protective presence, ultimately God's kindness, that softened the blow.

Once he shaved his head, he felt relief.

The proverb says that an effect ends when the thing producing it has been taken away. Relief is pictured as following directly from the removal of the condition that had made someone uncomfortable.

Just a taste on my tongue will do, only don't forget me.

The speaker asks to be remembered when good things are being shared. The request is modest: even a morsel small enough to rest on the tip of the tongue would do. The tongue refers to tasting food, not to speech, praise or gossip. What matters is inclusion in someone's kindness, not portion size.

When good sense is lacking, the feet end up doing the extra work.

The saying ties weak judgment to wasted effort. Someone who fails to think ahead keeps going back and forth on needless trips and repeated errands, so the legs figuratively pay for the mind's shortcomings: the tiredness stands for toil that poor judgment creates.

Take what is available, even if it is not ideal.

In a 1949 Arabic proverb collection, the saying is presented as urging acceptance of a modest opportunity at hand rather than waiting for a better one that may never arrive. An imperfect, immediate gain can be wiser than delay that loses every chance.

"Where are you off to, plump lady?" "Off to set the lopsided one right."

The saying is a playful dialogue in praise of plumpness. Fatness is imagined as a woman on an errand who answers that she is off to repair the 'crooked' one. That figure is a thin woman whose leanness was felt to spoil her looks, not someone morally dishonest.

Let a coward die, and he turns into a gallant horseman.

The proverb mocks the habit of glorifying people once they are gone. A man known in life for timidity is suddenly remembered as a fearless rider, as though death had rewritten his character. The joke lies in the gap between the plain truth everyone knew and the flattering legend that replaces it.

Nobody cries out unless there's a real reason.

The saying holds that a complaint does not arise out of nothing. Its key word imitates a sharp sound, used figuratively for an audible complaint or outcry rather than a literal noise. When someone protests, the outburst is taken as a sign that a genuine grievance lies behind it.

Whoever has felt a snake's bite will jump at the sight of a rope.

A person who has suffered real harm becomes alert to anything that even resembles its cause. A coiled rope looks enough like a snake to trigger alarm in someone who was bitten before. Painful experience leaves behind a lasting, sometimes outsized, vigilance.

I'll treat you exactly as you treat me. You're no god, so I have no reason to fear you.

The speaker offers a plain bargain of reciprocity: treatment will be returned in kind, whether good or bad. Respect earns respect and coldness earns coldness, because both parties stand on the same level and neither is owed special submission.

Lounging around is sweet, but a good thrashing soon gets you on your feet.

The saying admits that idleness is pleasant: sitting still and resting is loved by everyone. It then answers that pleasure with a round of punishing blows, which sends a person stirring into the work they had put off. The contrast warns that comfort chosen over duty comes with a price.

A boat with two masters goes under.

Drawing on the image of a boat with two masters, the saying holds that when a single enterprise answers to two leaders of equal standing, each pushes his own judgment and resists yielding to the other. Their rivalry over command and their clashing plans pull the shared venture apart until it fails.

Someone asked Juha, 'Where's your wife?' 'Off grinding for hire,' he said. 'And your own flour?' 'I paid to have it done.' 'Then why didn't you just let your wife grind it?'

In this little exchange, Juha, the familiar figure of fun cast as the fool, reports that his wife is grinding for hire, yet he has paid for his own flour to be ground. His questioners point out the plain fix he missed: his wife could simply have done that grinding herself.