Texts of Islam

Arabian Poetry: Shorter Pieces of Arabian Poetry: Lamiat Alajem, by Mauid Eddin Alhassan Abu Ismael Altograi

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This is an English translation of a classical Arabic ode (qasida), published in W. A. Clouston's 1881 anthology *Arabian Poetry*, with an editorial frame-summary prefacing the verse. Set at midnight in the desert with a sleeping caravan, the poem follows the narrator Hassan through three interwoven movements: an attempt to rouse his friend Selim for a clandestine visit to his beloved Abla, whose tent is guarded by rivals and hostile warriors; a meditation on frustrated ambition and Fortune's indifference to merit; and a bitter concluding argument that human society is irredeemably treacherous and that self-reliance is the only rational response. The love-quest strand is vivid and sensory — perfumed desert air, half-veiled glances, spear-thickets around a woman's bower — but it is ultimately abandoned when Selim refuses to stir, pivoting the poem's energy toward moral philosophy. What makes the work distinctive is its fusion of romantic ardor with stoic cynicism: the same speaker who courts danger for love flatly concludes that smiling men plant daggers in hearts and that no honest word can be trusted. The poem closes not with passion but with a prayer for Prudence to guide every step — an ending that reframes the entire night's restlessness as a lesson in self-mastery rather than a love poem.

Arabian Poetry: Shorter Pieces of Arabian Poetry: Lamiat Alajem, by Mauid Eddin Alhassan Abu Ismael Altograi

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