Arabic proverbs

If your partner insists on crossing you, take a loss yourself as long as he loses too.

When a partner keeps opposing and obstructing you, the proverb voices the urge to bring about his loss, even if the same blow falls on you as well. Shared damage is accepted as the price of making the uncooperative partner pay.

As idle as the Sultan's loafers, who won't even move out of the sun into the shade unless they're given a thrashing.

The saying describes laziness so deep that a person will not move even to help themselves. Shifting from scorching sun into cool shade is effortless and plainly good for them, yet they stay put until forced by a round of blows, not merely a push.

People told the judge, "Sir, a dog has urinated on the wall." He ruled, "Then it must be pulled down and rebuilt seven times." They said, "It's the one between us and you." He answered, "Even less than water will make it clean."

The saying ridicules judgments that bend to self-interest. A judge first orders a soiled wall pulled down and rebuilt seven times. Once he hears that it is the wall between the complainants and himself, the same impurity suddenly needs less than water to remove.

After all that fasting, he broke his fast with nothing but an onion.

The image is of a person who endures a long fast, then breaks it (fiṭir, colloquial for 'broke his fast') with a single onion, a meal far too meagre to satisfy hunger. The onion stands for anything cheap and unsatisfying, not for a literal food custom; all that self-denial earns something trivial.

Don't throw it in my face and I won't throw it in yours; this trouble has caught us both.

Two people who suffer the same misfortune have no standing to taunt each other over it. The verb عاير means shaming someone for a flaw, misfortune, or disgrace, sharper than ordinary criticism. Since the burden of worry and hardship has befallen both alike, any taunt would fall equally on the thrower, so the saying calls for mutual restraint.

Whoever has right on their side has standing, and has the right to speak.

The saying holds that justice confers authority. Since حق covers both being in the right and being owed something, a person whose cause is sound, or who holds a legitimate claim such as a creditor, earns a respected standing (مقام) in others' eyes, and their words carry weight.

He carries on like the only lemon in a town full of upset stomachs.

The saying mocks a self-satisfied person who struts about as though blessed with qualities no one else has. It pictures him as the lone lemon in a town full of queasy people, drawing on the folk belief that lemon settles nausea: he is the one remedy everybody supposedly craves.

Once people have branded you a thief, you may as well take what you can.

The saying expresses the bitter logic of a false accusation repeated until the accused has little reputation left to protect. Its image of sharpening a sickle is figurative, portraying persistent suspicion as pressure that may drive someone toward the very conduct wrongly attributed to them.

Between those who love each other, even anger is a form of goodwill.

When people are bound by genuine affection, even real fury flaring between them, not only mild irritation, carries no lasting weight. A harsh word or a sulk does not cancel the underlying goodwill, so such displeasure can be read as compatible with continued contentment, approval and love.

A face like a rooster's, and the rest of him is no better.

The saying mocks someone whose face is thin, bony, and plain, like a rooster's narrow head, and whose overall state is just as unappealing. The rooster image here means a pinched, unattractive face, not pride, strutting, or alertness.

A gourd is worth more than a head with no sense in it.

The saying declares that a brain lacking reason is worth less than a gourd. The gourd may be one bought for a trifling coin or simply a fresh one. On either reading, a head without sense ranks beneath a common vegetable.

One person does the taking, and ten end up under suspicion.

The saying sketches a familiar injustice: a single person commits the theft, yet a crowd of others ends up under suspicion. It points to how one act of wrongdoing spreads its consequences outward, so that many people who did nothing carry blame, scrutiny, or punishment.

Every rise has a fall waiting for it.

The saying holds that no climb lasts forever: whoever goes up, whether in wealth, rank, reputation or luck, will at some point come back down. It frames decline as the natural partner of success, so a high position should be held with humility rather than taken for granted.

The offender went and lodged a complaint against his own self.

The image is of a wrongdoer, the ḥawwāṭ or culprit rather than an ordinary complainant, who instead of escaping notice goes and complains about himself. Here rūḥuh means himself, not his soul. He becomes the cause of his own trouble, so the one bringing harm and the one suffering it are the same.

Foolish ways lead to empty pockets.

The saying claims that foolish, reckless or ill-mannered behavior eventually drains a person's means. Someone who acts without sense or restraint is expected to lose resources, opportunities and support. It works as a moral generalization about conduct and fortune, not as a literal or guaranteed rule of cause and effect.

They have no clothes on their backs, yet they want carpets to sit on.

The saying mocks people who lack the most basic covering for their bodies yet ask for fine floor rugs or carpets to sit on. Their request skips over what they urgently need and lands on a comfort that only makes sense once the essentials are in hand.

Stay close to the Zabadani, and Zabadani's sweet fragrance will settle on you.

Zabadani is a district in Syria prized for its fragrant apples. Anyone who stays near that fruit, most plainly the man who sells it, ends up smelling of it. Being close to something good lets a little of that goodness rub off on you.

God, bring this age crashing down — now it's the man who sulks and the woman who has to win him back.

The speaker mock-curses the present age, asking God to raze it, because things have become so topsy-turvy that a husband now storms off in a huff and his wife must chase after him to make up. It is exaggeration, not a literal prayer for destruction.

Clay comes from clay, and a pinch of dough comes from the dough.

The saying holds that whatever is taken from a material keeps the nature of that material. A piece of clay is still clay, and a portion pulled from dough is still dough. One variant swaps the dough image for mud filler pressed into a wall's gaps, with the same point.

A single loaf from flour I scraped together myself is enough to keep me going.

A small amount earned by one's own effort is enough to get by. The image is a lone loaf baked from the flour that collects on the mat beneath a hand mill: a meager yield won through hard work, yet enough to keep the speaker's life in balance.

He got out of one hole only to slide down the next slope.

The saying pictures someone climbing out of a hollow in the road only to land at once on a steep downward slope. The point lies in the passage from one hazard straight into the next, not in either hazard alone, so relief never really comes.

I've made things comfortable for you, indoors and out, yet you still turn away from me. What will bring you around?

The saying expresses frustration when care and attention meet with emotional distance. Someone has worked to make another person comfortable, yet that person remains unreceptive and does not return the affection being offered.

If you need to raise money, sell the item rather than put it up as security.

The saying advises against pawning a possession for a loan. Selling it provides its full value at once, while a pledge may yield only part of its value and leaves the owner responsible for recovering it.

Finish the business you mean to finish; sell what you would otherwise pledge; and if you choose to work for someone, follow their direction.

The saying recommends dealing promptly with an intended task. Once a matter has been taken up, bring it to completion instead of letting it remain open, prolonging deliberation, and keeping others involved in repeated discussion.

Whether someone strives hard or not, nobody takes anything from this world at death.

The saying sets energetic striving beside the absence of striving, then places both before the same end: neither person departs with worldly possessions. It frames material gain as something that remains behind when life ends.

A woman is warmly received where the hostess is her own relative.

The saying contrasts the comfort of visiting a household linked through one’s own female kin with the unease of entering through marriage ties. Its headscarf image is figurative: it means having one’s own relative in the home, not simply possessing clothing.

Hasan and Husayn are brothers; one is as good as the other.

The saying points to al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the brothers revered as grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad and honored especially in Shi'i tradition, to claim that the two things or people being compared stand on the same footing. Whatever can be said of one applies just as well to the other.

Once the fighting is over, the blowhard inflates himself and starts crowing.

The saying mocks someone who stays out of a fight and then appears afterward, loudly self-important, once the strong contenders have left. His bluster is safe because nobody is left to answer it.

Just a green melon some young donkey snapped off, and that's the whole of it.

The saying declares that a matter has become plain and that any further disagreement about it is pointless. With the facts now in view, the speaker regards the question as closed and sees nothing left that is worth contesting.

Whoever is content with the little he has lives in peace.

The saying holds that contentment, not abundance, is what makes life livable. Its verb literally says only that such a person 'lived'; the sense of living free of worry or distress is implied rather than stated. Accepting a modest share without resentment spares one the anxiety of always wanting more.

When the long-hungry finally eat their fill, their hearts swell with a fevered arrogance.

The saying claims that comfort arriving abruptly after deprivation does not settle a person calmly. Instead, the newly satisfied heart becomes inflamed, not with grief or longing as the key word might elsewhere suggest, but with restless swagger, and the person loses the restraint that hardship once enforced. Fresh plenty, in this view, breeds insolence.

Whoever is desperate grinds on the newly chiseled stone.

Necessity removes the luxury of waiting for ideal conditions. A person who urgently needs something will accept it in a flawed or inferior state, while someone with time to spare can hold back until circumstances improve and the quality is better.

Patience is a fine thing, but who is really willing to put up with it?

The saying grants that patience is a genuine virtue, then turns on a 'but' to ask, almost rhetorically, who actually consents to it; it does not claim that only certain people are patient. Admiring endurance in principle is easy, while accepting the long wait and quiet suffering it demands is something few willingly do.

If a man is no good to his own brother, a stranger can expect nothing from him.

The proverb treats a person's conduct toward his own brother as a test of whether he can be relied on. If he shows no goodness, help, or generosity there, a stranger has little reason to expect it from him.

Whoever isn't here carries his own case with him, so wait until he can make it.

The proverb asks listeners to suspend judgment about anyone who is not present, whatever their gender. The missing person may have an explanation or justification, a reasoned case of their own, that remains unheard because they are not there to give it. Condemning them now would mean deciding with only one side speaking.

Word went round that Abu Fasada kneads cream with his feet; someone answered, 'Then his heels would show it.'

The saying punctures a claim by noting that its natural consequences are missing. Abu Fasada is a folk name for a hopping bird with black legs: if it really worked cream with its feet, some trace would show on its heels, yet its legs stay plainly black, so the tale collapses on sight.

Anyone who enjoys the good side of something must also accept its hardships.

Benefits and burdens belong together. A person who willingly takes pleasure, advantage, or comfort from an undertaking should not complain when its unpleasant consequences or obligations arrive.

Let a liar continue long enough, and the lie will expose itself.

When someone is thought to be lying, do not rush into a dispute. Let the speaker carry the story onward; the falsehood may reveal itself as the account reaches its practical conclusion.

Establish your claim before choosing to let it go.

The proverb treats surrendering an entitlement as a choice that should follow clear recognition of it. A contested due ought to be brought into the open before its holder steps away from it.

"Don't let it go for too little." — "No need to tell that to someone who already watches out for himself."

The saying stages a brief exchange. One person warns another not to sell cheaply, meaning not to be careless or let his interests slip in any matter, not only in trade. The reply turns the warning back: there is no point in cautioning someone who is already vigilant and knows how to manage his own affairs.

Shake your rattle, poppy head! Something new and strange has turned up today.

The speaker calls on the "father of sleep", a folk name for the poppy, whose dry seed head rattles when shaken, to sound off like an alarm. The rattle is a dry clicking noise, not a call to wake a sleeper; it signals that people should look up, because something unheard of has just appeared.

Turn the calf loose, and it will find its own mother.

The image is pastoral: a young calf, once untied, needs no guide to reach its mother, because instinct leads it straight to her through the whole herd. Holding it back or steering it only gets in the way of a bond that already knows its direction.

Whoever kneads sabr is bound to taste some of it.

The image is of someone kneading sabr: whoever works it in this way ends up tasting some of it. The word الصبر may be read either as patience or as the plant bearing that name, and the saying leaves both readings open.

Easing the grip on the throat is like being given a drink.

The picture is of a hold clamped around the throat. When that grip slackens, the person caught in it can breathe again, and the saying likens this loosening to a welcome drink, treating the easing of a choking constraint as refreshing in itself.

God provides for the dozer and the striver alike, and even for the one fast asleep on his side.

The saying holds that God, the unnamed but understood provider, sustains everyone, whatever their condition. The dozer, the one who goes far seeking a living, and the one lying on his ear, meaning sleeping on his side in deep slumber, all receive their share. The paired rhyming words for sleeper and seeker are old terms surviving mainly in sayings.

You can plant early a hundred times before one early crop lets you down.

The saying praises crops sown at the start of the season: a farmer can plant early a hundred times before even one such planting disappoints. Early sowing is presented as the nearly reliable path to a good harvest, worth preferring whenever there is a choice.

Whoever dreads the scorpion ends up meeting a nastier many-legged pest.

The proverb portrays an unhappy reversal: a person tries to avoid one danger yet meets a threat judged more serious. It suggests that fear-driven avoidance can lead to an outcome more troubling than the one originally feared.

Trade gold jewelry for a house.

It counsels exchanging ornamental gold for a dwelling, treating the acquisition of real property as the preferable choice.

A broad foundation never gives way.

The image comes from building work. The part of a wall sunk into the ground stays out of sight, yet it decides whether everything above it holds. When that base is laid wide and firm, the structure resting on it stays straight, whole and free of defects.

From a wicked person, all you'll ever get is a stone thrown your way.

The saying warns that a person of bad character can be relied on for one thing only: injury. The word for that person literally means 'impure,' but here it figuratively labels bad character, not ritual impurity. Whatever you seek from them, the return is a hurt, pictured as a stone flung at you.