Arabic proverbs

If good meat is inexpensive, tripe will be inexpensive as well.

The proverb says that a fall in the price of a better food item is accompanied by a fall in the price of a poorer one. Even when both are cheap, the difference between the better and lesser goods is not removed.

A bad year lasts fifteen months.

The saying points out that hardship distorts our sense of time. Here a "black" year means a grim, ill-fated one, with no reference to color or ethnicity. A year of calamity does not feel like twelve ordinary months; it seems to stretch well beyond its true length.

A church can tell who its own congregation are.

A place that people visit again and again comes to know them, and anyone who truly belongs is recognized simply through that steady, familiar presence. Membership shows itself in habit and history rather than in claims. The church is only an image for such a place, not a comment on Christians or any religious community.

If you're fated to live long, you'll make it through every hardship.

The saying holds that a person who is meant to live a long life will get past sickness, danger, or crushing setbacks, outlasting them rather than merely enduring. Within its fatalistic worldview, survival is decided by the length of one's appointed span, not by how severe the trouble happens to be.

A mere pound of copper can make some people wealthy.

The saying holds that a modest quantity of a cheap metal can enrich and content people. A ratl is a traditional weight of no fixed value, and copper stands for humble worth beside gold or silver, not literal copper wealth. Something that looks paltry may still meet real needs.

It's the hidden stone that breaks the plow.

Picture a plow cutting through a field: what wrecks it is not the soil in plain view but something buried out of sight, most naturally a stone lodged in the earth. Open obstacles can be steered around; a concealed one meets the blade with no warning at all.

They threw out the fine flour and let the bran rise.

The saying draws on the kitchen, where العلامة names the finest white flour, not a sign or mark. That flour is tipped away, while the coarse bran sifted out of it receives all the care and swells like fermenting dough. The waste and absurdity of that choice form the core of the image.

He gets neither God's blessing nor His peace.

The expression marks someone as a nobody: a person so insignificant that no one bothers to grant them the customary good wishes. It conveys that the person draws no attention, carries no weight, and is simply disregarded by those around them.

As long and chilly as a winter night.

The expression holds up winter nights, which are at once long and cold, as a measure for something else. Whatever it is applied to is marked as extremely cold and extremely heavy, with the length of those nights lending the image its sense of weight.

If your ancestors left you no wealth, you are left slapping your cheeks in grief.

The saying presents inherited wealth as the basis of prosperity. Someone whose forebears leave no money or property is pictured as remaining poor and distressed. Here, good fortune refers specifically to material wealth, rather than luck in every part of life.

The bald man is bound to end up at the old-sandal seller.

The picture is of a man whose bald head spoils any cap he wears, so caps never last him long. His fate, rather than any literal journey, is to end up at the dealer in worn sandals, whose sturdy leather can be turned into a durable covering for his head.

Hold steady, earth, for no one who walks on you is a match for me!

The speaker pictures a braggart addressing the ground itself, ordering it to stay firm beneath him because no one upon it matches his rank or worth, as though his weight and might could make it buckle. The image inflates one person's self-regard until it rivals the earth, showing how absurd that vanity looks.

Follow the rope, and it will bring you to the peg it is tied to.

To find something hidden or distant, begin with a clue that is visibly connected to it. Tracing that connection can guide you step by step to the thing you seek.

When the guard does not harm what he is meant to protect, it is a blessing.

The saying expresses distrust of a person entrusted with protection or custody. Its point is that the supposed guardian may be the most immediate danger, so ordinary safety becomes remarkable rather than expected.

Anyone who refuses to heed advice may have to endure the consequences.

The saying warns that ignoring counsel or a warning can leave a person exposed to trouble. Its image of “eating” is figurative: it refers not to food but to undergoing an unwelcome share of harm or hardship.

You judge a night by how it finishes.

The saying holds that the true worth of an affair, whether good or bad, only becomes clear as it draws to a close. Just as nobody can tell what a night held until it has passed, early impressions are an unreliable basis for a final verdict.

Good comes from people coming together.

The saying values unity and cooperation, expressing the belief that collective effort can bring greater benefit than people acting separately.

Getting on a horse doesn't make you a rider.

The saying separates having access to something from being skilled at it. Anyone can climb onto a horse, but true horsemanship takes training, judgment, and control. Holding the position or the equipment does not prove the ability that is supposed to go with it.

When even a snake is devoted to you, you can hold it close without fear.

In a traditional interpretation, the saying expresses confidence that sincere affection restrains even someone regarded as dangerous. Its snake image is figurative, not advice to handle snakes or other dangers; nor does it endorse judging people by stereotypes about their character.

Even the holder of a tiny share in a village land section can claim a place within it.

Even a very small holding gives someone a legitimate connection to the thing held in common. The saying emphasizes that the size of a person's portion does not erase the ordinary place that comes with possessing it.

A noble person's word is a debt to be repaid.

A promise made by a person of noble character carries the same weight as money owed. Here دين means debt, not religion, and الحر means a high-minded person rather than simply a free one. Once spoken, a promise creates an obligation that must be settled, and a decent person cannot simply walk away from it.

Just like the brickmakers: thousands pass through his count, yet his bed is a palm-leaf mat.

Brickmakers, who mold mud bricks, reckon their output by the thousands, yet at night they lie down on plain mats plaited from palm fronds. The picture sets the huge numbers of their working day against the bareness of their own poor living conditions.

One taste of the food, and off went his cap to pay for more.

Someone samples a pleasure, finds it delicious, and from then on cannot leave it alone. He trades away his cap to get another helping; the cap stands for his possessions in general, so the point is his readiness to give up what he has, not the garment itself.

"Mother, get your blind boy to sleep!" She replied, "Who knows how to put him to bed better than his own mother?"

The saying ridicules pointless instruction. Someone tells a mother how to settle her own blind child for the night, as if she had not done it countless times. She points out that nobody understands the child's sleep better than she does, so the advice is empty.

Once someone lays down his arms, it is wrong to take his life.

The saying holds that surrender changes the moral situation. When an adversary stops fighting and gives up the means of resistance, whether by handing over or surrendering a weapon, the victor loses any right to strike them down. Attacking someone who has submitted is treated as forbidden, a moral expectation of restraint rather than a specific legal or religious ruling.

Eye, whatever you saw, you never saw it; and if they ask you to testify, just say you were at home.

The saying, addressed to one's own eye (a grammatically feminine noun in Arabic, so the feminine verbs do not indicate a woman), recommends deliberate non-involvement in other people's affairs. Whatever you notice about others should be treated as if it never reached your eyes, and you should not become a source of talk about them.

If you choose to live alongside someone, you must put up with the demands that come with them.

Close association is not limited to companionship’s pleasant side. Anyone who enters a relationship, household, or partnership should expect to bear some of the other person’s habits, needs, and difficulties.

When your brother’s house comes down, make sure you take a brick for yourself.

The saying expresses a harshly opportunistic attitude: once property is ruined and being picked over, a person should secure some share rather than leave empty-handed.

Even a single thread can make the work plain.

A trifling scrap can be the very thing that unlocks a puzzle. The saying treats a mere thread, the humblest part of any sewn item, as enough to point back to the whole it belongs to, so that something obscure becomes plain once its smallest component is noticed and followed.

One household's abundance cannot supply another household's needs.

The image contrasts two dwellings: one stocked, the other bare. However much the first contains, its store does not pass to the second. Its provisions serve that household’s own needs, so the existence of plenty elsewhere does not itself relieve an empty home.

The best bread is saved for the friend who keeps coming to check on you.

Generosity follows attentiveness. The person who regularly seeks out friends, asks after them, and shows up for them earns the choicest share of whatever the household offers, here pictured as a loaf warmed over coals.

One chicken shared by four is of use to no one.

The image is a single chicken that four people must share. Cut into four portions, it fills nobody, so the meal accomplishes nothing for any of them. A thing can have genuine worth and still lose it once it is parceled out among too many people.

What business does a ragged pauper have among kings?

The saying rebukes someone seen as overstepping their social station or competing with people regarded as above them. It presents the attempt as an ill-matched intrusion into a higher-status circle, especially in pursuit of rank, influence, or privilege.

Keep your fool happy: bake him some sweet cookies and hand them over.

The saying recommends managing a foolish or ill-mannered person through gentleness rather than confrontation. Instead of arguing with someone who will not listen to reason, one should humor them and even sweeten them with treats, because quarreling with such a person only produces more trouble.

Charity is only proper once your own household has what it needs.

Charity toward others is proper only when it comes from surplus. A person's first duty is to meet the basic needs of their own home; giving away what the family itself requires is not true virtue but a misplaced priority.

It's the plump, featherless chick that ends up under the knife.

The scene shows a young bird featherless by nature, not plucked or stripped, the kind of chick that tends to be the fattest. Because of that natural plumpness it is judged ready for the table, and so it is brought before the blade. The image says nothing about human poverty or undress.

A snake charmer's death comes from a snake.

Whoever spends a life handling something dangerous will most likely be hurt by that very thing, as the ḥāwi, a snake handler who catches and displays snakes, is by snakes. Skill and familiarity do not cancel the hazard; repeated exposure makes eventual injury from it more likely, not less.

Everyone's eggplant looks nothing like anyone else's.

The saying points out, with playful exaggeration, that no two people think or choose alike. Its eggplant is an everyday image, and its "shape" means a contrasting kind rather than mere physical form: each person holds an idea or preference unlike everyone else's, so expecting uniform opinions is unrealistic.

Just like aged cheese that breeds its own worms.

The image is of mish, a salted cheese left to age, in which worms appear that seem to grow out of the cheese itself. Nothing crawls in from outside; the decay is born from the very substance it eats away.

A dog is still a dog, even in a golden collar.

Outward finery cannot change what someone fundamentally is. A person of low or ignoble character remains the same underneath, however expensive the clothing, jewelry, or other trappings they put on to look respectable.

Better to make a profit on dung fuel than to take a loss on musk.

The saying ranks outcome above prestige, preferring one option rather than the other. A dealer who profits from something as lowly as dung cakes, a cheap everyday fuel, is better off than one who handles costly, fragrant musk and ends up losing. What counts in trade is the gain, not how refined the merchandise appears or smells.

When kin fight, the blade has no edge.

Quarrels between relatives rarely go as far as they appear to. Even when family members fight, they tend to hold back from inflicting real injury on one another, as if the weapon they use has no edge. Their anger is usually restrained by the bond they share.

Whatever fate has written for you, you are bound to live through.

The saying expresses the belief that each person's destiny is already set down, drawing on the traditional image of fate inscribed on the brow rather than any visible mark on the face. Whatever has been decreed cannot be dodged; sooner or later the person will meet it and witness it with their own eyes.

The one who shares with you is the one who will quarrel with you.

The saying sets the person you share with beside the person you contend with and presents them as one and the same. Its point is that partnership and disagreement travel together: those bound in a common undertaking are the ones who end up at odds.

So much height that his brains got lost somewhere along the way.

This traditional jab mocks a tall person by suggesting that their good sense was stretched so thin across a long frame that it went missing somewhere inside. It rests on an old stereotype linking bodily height with dim-wittedness. It records that teasing and is not a real claim about tall people or about intelligence.

The ship will make land in the end, even if it washes up in pieces.

Every venture must end up somewhere. Like a ship that will reach the coast whether it sails in safely or drifts in as scattered planks from a wreck, any matter eventually comes to rest at its final state, and no amount of delay or turmoil keeps it suspended forever.

Whoever can't manage his own affairs puts it all down to fate.

The proverb exposes a familiar habit of self-justification. A person who lacks the skill or foresight to arrange their affairs, once things go wrong, points to fate or destiny as the cause. That spares them from admitting their own poor management.

Juha went up the palm tree and kept his sandal with him all the way.

The picture is of Juha scaling a palm tree while keeping his shoe, a heavy slipper-like piece of footwear, on his person rather than leaving it at the foot of the trunk. The saying draws on this scene to describe carefulness taken to a remarkably thorough degree.

A close friend can be a chronic burden you just have to put up with.

The saying warns that a close companion can turn into a lingering affliction. Here the key word is read as an ailment rather than a cause or pretext: because the friend treats the bond as a favor he grants, you end up bearing burdens from him you would never accept from anyone else.

A Copt with no craftiness is like a tree that bears no fruit.

The saying rests on a disparaging stereotype that attributes cunning to Copts as a group and grants them no other merit. On that assumption, a Copt who lacks shrewd scheming is judged worthless, much as a tree that produces no fruit is thought to serve no purpose.