Library of Arabic Literature

"He had no sense of how to humor men, And that’s a sin too great to be excused."

Check out our new blog post from @rrgould on Ibn Faḍlān’s Mission to the Volga, Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead, and The 13th Warrior!

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"Ibn Ḥamdūn declaimed: I gave my soul to love . . .
And she answered on the spot: . . . and love ruled like a tyrant.
He continued: So I became a humble slave . . .
And she rejoined: . . . and followed where he went."

“The wise man is not someone who can discern good from evil, but rather someone who can tell the better of two evils.”

"I thus declare: certain of our most eminent scholars have said that the woman is more honorable than the man, more imposing, nobler, more clem- ent, more virtuous, and more generous."

"Let this be a lesson to all who would take heed: Do not be seduced by the world. It will only dupe and deceive you."

"“Glory,” said she, “lies in change of location. If hopes could be attained through nobility of domicile, the sun would never leave its ovine station.”"

"Where are the folly of youth with its excesses so easily excused? Gone. Vanished. Now far away."

"If you haven't seized what you've missed in life, go for it now and for as long as you can."

"Blamers of love, go easy; I can never replace my love of him."

"All people reveal their character when touched by hardship."

"He said, “Just think, wife—we’ve lived together a goodly span of time.” “That’s all I think of,” she replied. The Fāriyāq resumed his narrative. “I asked her, ‘Hatefully or gratefully?’ and she replied, ‘Half the latter and half the former.’"

"Worries besiege me in swelling numbers. As I lie awake, my heart bleeds for a reason: what use blaming lovers inflamed by passion?"

"Early, when the pink of dawn glows in the dark, I go hunting."

"A sun, whose approach makes plain that the sun itself need not trouble to rise, You grow, despite your years, in brightness and in beauty as wine grows more delicate in its old age."

“Whenever her nightly phantom visits me my eyes are hurt, my tear ducts overflow,
with tears like pearls let loose—strung on a string, but now the string has let them down.”

"My heart is a valley that’s crawling with locusts; at night, they strip every shrub bare of its leaves. It’s as if I’m in a wooden ship tossed by a raging sea, swollen by the storm winds that drive the surging waves,"

"Judge with the eye of rationality and judicious calculation, not that of passion and foolish, inconsequential speculation!"

"Nothing in existence can be still, not even for a single moment in time,"

"Love is one of those things specific to the stage beyond the intellect"

“Whoever has love in his mind deserves to have a friend who shares his mind with him and doesn’t hold back his thoughts.”

"Let them kill me—my deeds will live."

"I’d rather have a slab of rock for a pillow than sleep on a soft carpet in a land of ignominy."

"While the verses it contains are like bricks in their stacking, and there are learned discussions free for the taking. Gaze on it well and peruse it truly and very soon you’ll find your stomach’s unruly!"

"Friendship never prevented him from intervening when someone he cared for behaved badly or wronged anyone else."

"I wander the palace, but I see no one, no one will answer my plaint, it would seem, I feel as though I’ve committed a sin, one I can repent of but can never redeem."

"My very separation from people saves me contamination whereas their proximity infects both mind and faith. Just as a line of poetry, if left on its own, cannot be affected by common faults."

"The measure of their dedication will determine the honor they reap, and the graces they enjoy in this world and the next."

"Those who most deserve to share your happiness are those who comfort you in adversity."

"With my right hand I took what I pleased when I saw the sun’s colors burst in full glory, I took from it my desire, with my right hand. But death is preferable to the ignominy of ignorance, living a wretched life, devoid of any certainty."

A Hundred and One Nights, translated by Bruce Fudge