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You're so pleased with the present that you've forgotten what it will cost you.

The saying teases someone so taken with a gift that she overlooks the obligation it carries. The address is grammatically feminine, but the lesson applies to anyone. By custom, a present invites a return of comparable worth one day. The point is not that receiving gifts is wrong, but that delight should not hide the duty to reciprocate.

Be content with the lesser coin until the better one arrives.

The saying counsels a person not to let narrow means or a modest portion poison the present. It urges calm acceptance of what is presently allotted, rather than distressing oneself while circumstances remain limited.

Let me have some wool now, even if you get a whole sheep from me tomorrow.

The speaker asks for some wool today and, in return, agrees that the listener will take a whole sheep from them tomorrow. The saying voices a plain preference for having something now over waiting: what can be had at once counts for more with the speaker than what will be handed over later, even though a sheep is worth far more than some wool. It belongs with sayings that favour the small thing in hand today over the larger thing that belongs to tomorrow.

News of something distant will eventually reach people when travellers arrive.

The image is of a woman giving birth in distant Mecca, whose news is carried back by pilgrims. It conveys confidence that a matter hidden merely by remoteness will become known when circumstances create a route for information to travel.

The one who hurries and the slow one meet at the ferry.

The saying sets two travellers side by side, one who hurries and one who takes their time, and has them meet at the ferry, where both must wait for the same crossing. The lesson is that hurrying gains nothing when the finish depends on something outside a person’s control. The hurried traveller arrives first but leaves no sooner, and has spent effort and strain for no advantage.

• Compare: Someone is hurrying a task or journey whose finish they do not fully control.

The person who can wait obtains the goal.

Here ‘stay’ means wait. The saying holds that the person who is able to wait is the one who eventually gets what they are after, while those who give up or settle early go without. By saying ‘can stay’, it treats patience as a capacity that not everyone has, and presents that capacity as a real advantage in reaching a goal.

• Compare: Someone wants a result that will not come at once and is tempted to press for it rather than hold on.

The troublemaker's life just goes on and on.

The saying observes that a miserable, troublesome person tends to live a long time. The key word can mean one who causes misery or one who suffers it; it leans toward the troublemaker, though a sense of wretchedness remains. It voices the bitter sense that those who cause most grief hang on, while others keep enduring them.

Just like smoke: once it slips out, it never returns.

The saying likens a person to smoke drifting out through an opening: once it escapes, it is gone for good. It describes someone whose regular pattern is to slip away from a place or gathering and simply not come back; the smoke image concerns escape without return, not the fleeting nature of life or wealth.

A living man who wishes death on another living man is a lunatic who ought to be cauterized.

The proverb scorns anyone who sits waiting for another person to die, whether to gloat once that person is gone or to profit from what is left behind. Such a hope is branded as outright madness, deserving the harsh old remedy of burning the head, invoked here as scornful exaggeration rather than a real recommendation.

A shut door keeps trouble out.

The proverb praises precaution: sensible barriers and careful limits can prevent danger before it reaches a person, household, or undertaking. Its door is a figurative image for any effective safeguard, not only a physical door.

Whatever you send ahead with your own hands, you will find waiting for you.

The saying holds that a person's deeds are never wasted. Whatever someone sends forward through their own effort will be there to greet them later, so everyone eventually encounters the results their own conduct has laid up for them.

At this rate the fast will never end and the holiday will never arrive.

The saying grumbles that a job is moving so sluggishly that, at this rate, it will never be finished. The speaker imagines the fasting month stretching on forever and the festival that should close it never arriving, a playful exaggeration aimed at people who are dawdling over their work.

I sent someone off to fetch the one I was waiting for; he left as well, and he never came back to me either.

Someone is waiting for a person who should have returned quickly. To hurry things along, the speaker sends another person to fetch him, but the one sent also goes off and fails to return. Instead of ending the first absence, the speaker has simply added a second one to it.

Keep feeding scraps of kindling under your water, and it will warm up.

The saying urges a person to look after their own concerns and keep working at them, even with meager resources. The image is of heating water with stray bits of straw and broken twigs rather than real firewood; steady, modest attention is enough to bring a situation gradually into good order.

Before the unlucky man's fortune ever turns, his days have run out.

The saying observes that by the time a person dogged by bad luck finally becomes well-off, his life has already been spent. The good fortune hoped for is chiefly material prosperity, and it comes so slowly that death arrives before the wealth does.

Whoever chews with his own teeth gains the benefit.

The proverb praises taking personal responsibility for what concerns one’s own welfare. A person gains most directly by doing the necessary work for himself rather than leaving that essential task to someone else.

Tomorrow Rajab begins, and you will see these wonders.

The saying cautions against making or amplifying dramatic predictions about what has not happened. Rather than treating rumor or conjecture as knowledge, it points to the near future as the test of such claims.

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.

If you venture into the sea, you must put up with the waves.

Choosing to enter a risky situation also means accepting the difficulties that come with it. The saying urges a person to be ready to endure those difficulties rather than expect the undertaking to be free of trouble.

Even a lock made of wood will guard the doorway.

The saying holds that protection need not be costly or elaborate to be worthwhile. Here ḍabba names a wooden lock or bolt, not the similar-looking word for a lizard, and ʿatab means thresholds, not reproach. A humble wooden bolt still secures the entrance, so a person should make use of whatever safeguards are within reach.

Every word has a reply waiting for it.

The saying holds that nothing said is final or beyond response. Whatever is spoken, whether a question or a statement, has some fitting reply that can be set against it, so no utterance closes the matter on its own.

Give me your turban now; you can have it back on Judgment Day.

The saying mocks a person who takes a loan or borrows an object and keeps putting off its return. The turban stands for any borrowed item or unpaid debt. Postponing repayment until the Last Day means postponing it forever, so the lender should expect nothing back in this life.

You only get butter if you churn the milk.

The saying draws on a familiar household task: milk yields butter only after it has been shaken or beaten for a long while. The image makes the point that the valuable part of something stays hidden until someone puts in steady physical effort.

By the time the cure gets here from far away, the patient will already be dead.

The saying warns that help which depends on a distant, slow source may arrive only after it has stopped being useful. A remedy, however effective, is worthless if the person who needed it has already died while waiting for it to make the long journey.

Be patient, Sittet, until you have the house to yourself.

The saying tells someone not to rush into a matter before the circumstances are ready. It urges patience until the moment is genuinely open for the person to proceed.

The one who prepares before the appointed time will not be caught unready.

The saying praises foresight: preparing for an obligation before its deadline gives a person control when the moment arrives. Readiness prevents delay, confusion, and the risk of missing what must be done.

If one survives, one will discover who caused the harm.

The saying expresses confidence that survival eventually brings clarity. Here, “the head” stands for the person who remains alive: someone who endures a misfortune whose cause is unknown may later learn who was responsible.

Every well has its drain right beside it.

Whatever comes in has an exit waiting for it. The saying pictures water drawn from a well and spilled on the ground, where a nearby drain or channel, not a second well or reservoir, carries it away. The image is economic: each gain is matched by some outlet through which it is spent.

The one who shops after dark pays in bad coin.

The image is of a habitual customer of a particular shop who deliberately comes to buy after nightfall, because a merchant in the darkness cannot easily examine coins. Whatever he hands over is likely to be counterfeit, since the darkness itself is the reason he chose that moment.

An enemy will never turn into a friend, any more than a fig tree will ever bear raisins.

The saying holds that real hostility cannot turn into genuine affection. Someone who has been an enemy stays an enemy at heart, whatever warmth they may show, so expecting true friendship from them is as hopeless as waiting for an impossible harvest.

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.

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.

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.

Trade even with a very small sum, and trust that God can create a livelihood from the margin.

The saying urges a person not to dismiss very modest capital as useless. Its “khamsa” is a small copper monetary unit, so the image is of beginning to trade even when one’s means seem slight.

Show others warmth, and they are likely to warm to you.

Friendliness encourages a friendly response.

Hope can make a person feel more vulnerable than hopelessness does, because it keeps a desired outcome emotionally alive. Waiting for what one deeply wants may expose dependence, uncertainty, and the limits of personal control.

The saying can be direct practical advice: when wind can catch or chill you, secure the side most exposed rather than waiting for discomfort or loss. In context, its image may also support a broader caution.

When a needed person, resource, or opportunity will not come closer or cooperate, the sensible response is to change one’s own plan. The saying favors practical adjustment and initiative over waiting for circumstances to comply.

Small earnings, savings, or advantages may seem insignificant one by one, yet their steady accumulation can produce substantial wealth. The saying favors patience and regular effort over waiting for a single large windfall.

The proverb places responsibility for an unfounded grievance on the person who is angry. If no one has done them a wrong, no one owes them a remedy.