Inquire after the state of the market before bringing thy goods to it.— This and the following idioms are amplifications of the proverb (ii. 259): “Before shooting arrows let the quivers be full,” to the effect that one ought to make all necessary preparations before engaging in an important undertaking.
And despair not of the mercy of Allah, taken from Koran, xii. 87: “Go, my sons, and seek tidings of Joseph and his brother, and despair not of God’s mercy (rauḥ), verily none but the unbelieving despair of the mercy of God.”
Promises have their reversals, in Arabic (li ’l-‘idâti mua‘qqibâtin, objective case dependent on the preceding inna), allusion to Koran, xiii. 41: “And if God pronounces a doom, there is none to reverse (mu‘aqqib) His doom, and swift is He to take account.”
Display then the patience of those endowed with firmness, an expression borrowed from Koran, xlvi. 34: “Bear thou up, then, with patience, as did the Apostles endued with firmness,” and applying, according to the most trustworthy interpretation, to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
Hold not thy hand tied to thy neck, etc., quotation from the same, xvii. 31: “And let not thy hand be tied up to thy neck; nor yet open it with all openness, lest thou sit thee down in rebuke, in beggary.”
And gratified with poor fruit and bad measure, proverbially applied to one who meets with two evils or calamities. Aṣma‘î relates that Abû Ja‘far al-Manṣûr encountered an Arab in Syria, and said to him: “Praise be to God that He took from you the plague under our government.” The prompt reply was: “Allah does not bestow on us at the same time poor fruit and bad measure, to wit, your government and the plague” (Ar. Prov., i. 368).
For the neighbour before the house, and the fellow-traveller before setting out on the road, two popular sayings of self-evident meaning, for which see Ar. Prov., i. 368.
If I be spared after thee—but may I never taste thy loss, a figure of speech, called by grammarians ḥashw, parenthesis, as in Koran, lvi. 74, 75: “And I swear by the places where the stars do set,— And that is surely a great oath if ye only knew it.”
How like is the night to yesternight, i.e., how like is the son to the father (Ar. Prov., ii. 615). This proverb, expressive of perfect equality, is said to originate with the following couplets, ascribed to Ṭarafeh, although they are not to be found in his dîwân:
“Every familiar I have treated with true friendship, but as for them, may Allah not leave them a tooth to show in their smile,
All of them are falser than the fox, how like is the night to yesternight.”
“A tooth to show in their smile” is a paraphrase of the Arabic wâẓiḥah, which is explained as a tooth that becomes visible in laughing, and the phrase itself is a counterpart of the idiom “may thy mouth not be harmed,” mentioned in the notes to Assembly XLVI., p. 289, above.
He who resembles his father does not go wrong, a proverb the meaning of which is, “he misplaces not his resemblance, because none is worthier of the son’s likeness than the father.” Its origin is ascribed to the line of Ka‘b ibn Zohayr:
“I am the son of one who has never opposed me in his life heretofore, and he who is like his father does not go wrong” (Ar. Prov., ii. 665).
Above the mandates of Lokman, the Sage, after whom Sura xxxi. of the Koran is named, to the title of which Rodwell remarks: “The opinion most generally received is that Lokman is the same person whom the Greeks, not knowing his real name, have called Æsop, i.e., Æthiops.”