Arabic proverbs

If someone gives you up, give them up in turn. Friendship lasts only as long as fate allows.

The saying advises answering abandonment in kind. Here "selling" someone is figurative, meaning to give them up or treat them as expendable. When a companion lets you go so easily, you owe them no further pursuit. You may release them just as readily and keep your dignity, without seeking revenge.

One hand alone cannot clap.

Some undertakings cannot be completed by one person, because they require the participation or effort of others to be carried through.

'Lord, bring me through safely and with a profit!' Then: 'Lord, just bring me through safely, and that will do.'

The saying stages a prayer that shrinks as it goes. First comes a wish for both a safe outcome and a share of spoils, built on the chiming pair sallim and ghannim, then a plea for safety alone that cuts the pair short. Its point is that escaping harm outweighs any gain, so one should settle for getting through intact.

Save your energy, mother-in-law, because my wife is the only one I've got.

A husband addresses his wife's mother as she rushes to champion her daughter during a marital spat. He tells her to spare her effort and not wear herself out, because he and his wife belong to one another. Whatever the quarrel, it will end in reconciliation, so her effort is unnecessary.

Neighbor, those words were meant for you, you donkey!

The speaker has been hinting, making remarks that look general but are really aimed at one particular woman. When she fails to recognize herself in them, the speaker drops the pretense and declares that the words were for her all along, then mocks her for being too slow to notice.

Like a sprouted bean, with the sleeve off and the arm bare to the armpit.

The saying likens a person to a fava bean soaked in water until a small shoot appears at its tip, and pictures that person with a sleeve pulled off so the arm is uncovered all the way to the armpit. Exactly which feature of the bean calls up the bared arm is left unstated.

She had peace and quiet, then went and brought a racket on herself.

The saying pokes fun at someone who was living at ease and then, by her own doing, took on something that keeps her occupied and wears her down. Ḥāḥa names the cries of animals such as goats, chickens, or geese, so the new trouble is pictured as noise she invited into a quiet life.

Whoever helps make good happen shares the merit of the one who does it.

The saying places a person who actively pursues a good deed on the same moral footing as whoever actually carries it out. Effort spent bringing something good into being is credited as though the deed were one's own, because that effort helped cause it.

Puffed up like a featherless festival rooster, bare yet full of swagger.

The image is a rooster featherless by nature, fattened during the fifty days before Sham el-Nessim, not the hot wind also called khamasin. Such birds grow bigger than others and puff themselves up, yet have no feathers. The strutting looks absurd next to the bare body.

Someone starving will bite down on stones.

Hunger here pictures desperation. Someone with nothing left will bite down on stones, trying what nobody in comfort would consider. Pressed hard enough, people stop asking whether a task can be done at all and simply throw themselves at it.

Rain falling as the plough is in use is good fortune for the farmer.

The proverb welcomes rain that comes early, at the season when fields are being ploughed. Rain at that point is portrayed as fortunate for the cultivator, because it arrives in step with the first work of preparing the soil.

Restrain the self, and it will take only its rightful share.

The saying ties self-discipline to taking no more than one's rightful portion. The feminine pronoun refers to the self or soul (nafs), not to a woman or an animal. The self, pictured as something that eats, keeps to its own share instead of grabbing beyond it, so restraint holds a person's desires within proper bounds.

Love looks on with sightless eyes.

The saying gives love an eye of its own and declares that eye blind; the dialect form عَمْيَهْ corresponds to the standard feminine عمياء, agreeing with the feminine noun عين. Taken plainly, it holds that a person who loves cannot see clearly what they love, so their view lacks the clarity of someone unattached.

Don't be fooled by my groomed face; at heart I'm still a country person.

The speaker warns that a groomed, carefully finished face should not be mistaken for refined character. Beneath the cosmetic care, the saying claims, the blunt temperament of a rural upbringing remains, a stereotype of country people it takes for granted. Tahfif, the plucking of facial hair, serves here as shorthand for tidiness and adornment of any kind.

Easy availability takes the edge off desire.

The proverb points to the way desire can fade when an object is plainly within reach. Having a clear path to possession may make it seem less compelling than it otherwise would.

You who chase after looks, your hopes will come to nothing.

The saying addresses anyone led along by outward form alone; here الزول means the figure or bodily appearance seen at a glance. It tells them such pursuit ends in let-down: looks promise much, but the hopes placed on them are likely to come to nothing.

Bound like a Christian marriage: only death will pull them apart.

The saying describes an attachment that cannot be undone. Whatever is joined to something else in this way stays with it permanently, and the bond ends only when one side ceases to exist. It stresses inseparability rather than affection, so the tie may be welcome or burdensome.

A person unfamiliar with incense can end up burning the edge of his clothes.

The saying warns that ignorance of a practice can turn an ordinary attempt into self-inflicted harm. It pictures someone handling incense without knowing the necessary precautions and accidentally scorching a trailing hem.

With the breast offered to him and his mother's lap serving as his potty.

The saying pictures a baby being nursed while it is allowed to relieve itself in its mother's lap at the same moment. Here the key word means the lap or the gathered fold of a garment, not stone or confinement. Both needs are met together, without effort or waiting. Nothing more could make it comfortable.

As long as mothers keep having children, nobody is the cleverest one alive.

The saying denies that anyone's skill is unmatched; it does not claim that nobody is capable. As long as children go on being born, the world keeps producing new people, and among them will be others just as skilled or competent. No one should believe their ability is so rare that its like will never appear again.

Sooner make a foe of a prince than of a watchman.

The saying ranks two kinds of enemy and finds the humble one more dangerous. A person of high standing has a name and dignity to protect, so even in hostility he tends to hold back from conduct that would shame him in public eyes.

Nobody sends the poor man presents or fusses over him, and in court no testimony holds up for him.

The saying complains that poverty strips a person of the small courtesies others receive. No one brings him presents or treats him with the soft, patient care a nurse gives a child. The two rhyming verbs, yithādā and yiddādā, pair the absence of gifts with the absence of tender handling.

Anyone who cannot see through a sieve must be blind.

The proverb is said of a matter so plainly before the eyes that failing to recognize it is compared with blindness. The sieve’s holes make the image emphatic: it offers no real barrier to seeing what is on the other side.

It's like the kuttīḥ weed: the more you gorge on it, the surer you are to burst.

The saying marks something as a trap disguised as nourishment. What appears to feed and satisfy turns out to be the very thing that destroys, so the moment of having had enough is also the moment harm arrives. The thing in question is judged by where it leads, not by how it looks.

A threadbare garment never falls apart as long as someone is there to mend it.

The saying pictures an old, thin garment that keeps its shape because someone keeps patching it. Its lesson is that diligent upkeep and sensible management can preserve what seems close to ruin, so neglect, not age alone, is what finally wears things out.

Like a beetle snagged in loose flax threads.

The image is of a beetle whose legs catch in a tangle of thin, loose flax strands. Something so flimsy should be no obstacle, yet the creature cannot free itself or keep walking, and ends up helplessly stuck where it stands.

Duping the gullible is like gleaning free pickings from the fields.

The saying holds that a simple-minded person is an easy source of profit for anyone willing to lie. Here 'laughing at' means duping with lies to take what they have, not mocking. Tricking them pays off like a trip through the fields, gathering a little here and there with little effort.

Walking into the bathhouse is one thing; walking back out is quite another.

The saying contrasts an easy start with a slow, demanding finish. Anyone may walk into a traditional public bathhouse at will, but leaving cannot be rushed: the bather passes through its rooms of differing heat one by one, pausing in each so the body does not meet sudden cold straight after intense heat.

Like a whistle: just a scrap of reed, but what a din it makes.

The image is a small reed whistle: a mere hollow segment of cane that nonetheless produces a shrill, piercing blast. The saying mocks the gap between how little something is and how much clamor it raises, pointing at a person whose volume is out of all proportion to their substance.

Put a simple cookie in an orphan's hand, and everyone acts as if it were a marvel.

The saying observes that a trifling thing becomes a source of disapproving astonishment once it lands with someone vulnerable. A cheap, ordinary pastry would pass unnoticed in most hands, yet in an orphan's grasp people stare at it with grudging surprise, not admiration, as though it were remarkable.

What was dug in secret has grown until everyone can see it.

The image is a breach dug into a wall. A thief cuts a small opening to work unseen, but if the hole widens and the room fills with light, the intruders are exposed.

What the small ones start, the big ones get caught in.

Trouble set in motion by those who count for little, whether in years or in rank, does not stay confined to them. The saying never names what 'it' is, but it is best understood as mischief that spreads until weightier people nearby are drawn in and left to deal with something they never began.

A cheap cup of coffee can satisfy a craving.

The saying favors contentment: an inexpensive pleasure can answer a want as effectively as a costly one. Its image refers to a former low-value copper coin, underscoring that satisfaction need not require the most expensive choice.

Nothing slips past him, not even last night's leftovers.

This disparaging saying portrays a greedy person so intent on gain that nothing gets away from him. Whatever comes within his reach, he makes sure to get hold of it before it has any chance to escape.

A kind word for the old ferryman.

The saying points to a familiar contrast: when someone draws many complaints, the person who follows may make the earlier one seem deserving of mercy.

Friendship and money don't go together.

The saying holds that real companionship and an eye on someone's money cannot sit together. Once you choose a person as a friend or companion, you should stop calculating what their wealth might bring you, because friendship belongs to a different order than profit.

Eat beans and you'll be trudging every which way; eat kebab and you'll stay put behind the door.

The saying protests unequal treatment: one person is made to keep moving back and forth, while another is allowed to stay settled at home. The contrast between the two foods sharpens the sense that hardship and ease have been handed out unfairly.

I didn't see the camel, and I didn't see its driver either.

At face value, the speaker says they themselves never saw the camel, nor the man who drives it. Naming both together turns the reply into a blanket first-person disavowal, a claim to know nothing about one part of the affair or the other.

That rotten neighbor of ours is the worst: our food went down his throat, while his own stayed safely stashed.

The saying gives voice to a household's exasperation with one particular neighbor whose dealings only ever run in his favor. Whatever they had ended up in his mouth, yet his own provisions never came into view, so living beside him meant constant loss and no return.

The wedding's in Sandafa, yet al-Mahalla's women are the ones getting their faces done.

The saying mocks people who prepare and primp as if a celebration were their own when it is happening elsewhere. The bride sits in Sandafa, yet the women of neighboring al-Mahalla remove their facial hair with sweet paste or gum, as a bride would. The villages' closeness makes the excitement understandable, but the wedding still belongs elsewhere.

The mill gives back only as much flour as the grain you measure into it.

The saying draws on a mill: the flowing here is flour streaming from the mill's outlet, not a flood, and it can never exceed the grain measured into the mill. Output is bound to input, so whatever a person receives mirrors what they have supplied.

Leave washing your face until after lunch, and watch your riches turn to want.

The saying links a trivial morning habit to economic ruin. A person who gets up and cannot be bothered even to wash his face until the midday meal has passed shows a sluggishness that will also govern how he works and manages his affairs.

The way to honor the dead is to bury them.

The saying locates the honor owed to someone who has died in the act of burial itself. Laying the body in the ground is presented as the fitting tribute, the form of respect that the living owe to the departed.

A grieving person's door looks as if it has been smeared with mud.

Here unhappiness is pictured not in the face or voice of the sufferer but on the entrance to their home, smudged with mud. A single grim detail at the threshold stands in for how thoroughly gloom has taken hold of someone's life.

A slave who belongs to someone else is as free of your command as you are.

Rooted in the historical institution of slavery, the saying limits a person's authority over an enslaved individual to their own claim of ownership. Someone enslaved by another master is not subject to the listener's commands and, in that limited relationship, is treated as free. It does not assert that the enslaved person is legally free.

They say that a young man who neither falls in love nor adopts a lover’s manner will remain a fool all his life.

Historically, the saying judges a young man who neither loves nor adopts the manner of a lover, calling him foolish through a derogatory comparison with a donkey.

Two combs for a woman with no hair, two kohl pots for a woman with one eye.

The saying mocks people who collect more tools or accessories than they could ever use, purely to show off. A woman whose hair was lost to a scalp disease owning two combs, or a woman with one eye owning two kohl pots, pictures equipment that is both doubled and pointless for its owner.

Unsecured animals are liable to be stolen.

The saying warns that neglect makes loss more likely. Someone who leaves property unguarded or fails to take ordinary precautions may find it gone; this practical warning does not excuse theft or shift blame from the thief.

Ask a thief to swear he's innocent, and he'll say, "Saved at last!"

The saying pictures a suspected thief who is offered a way out of the accusation: he only has to take an oath. For someone with no scruples about lying, swearing is effortless, so he greets the demand as a rescue rather than a test of his honesty.

Sift it seven times and the husk still gets through.

The saying pictures someone running flour through sieve after sieve while bran and stray bits of stalk, which sifting should remove, keep slipping back in. All that sifting fails because it is done carelessly, so the flour is no cleaner than before. Repeating a task many times means little if it is never done properly.