Lessonsal-Ḥārith ibn Ḥillizah: Courtroom Advocacy, Three Proofs and Battle Similes (verses 47–55)Quiz

وَفَعَلْنَا بِهِمْ كَمَا عَلِمَ اللَّهُ وَمَا إِنْ لِلْحَائِنِينَ دِمَاءُ
Meaning: God knows what we did to them; the poet then asserts that no blood-claim remains, he asserts, for those he describes as doomed.

Kamā ʿalima Allāh intensifies the poet’s account by invoking God’s knowledge. Al-ḥāʾinīn is explained in the commentary in terms of those exposed to destruction or already perished. Dimāʾ can carry the sense of blood-claims or compensation as well as literal blood.

The wording wa-mā in ... dimāʾ is emphatic negation. It should be read as a claim advanced in a pre-Islamic tribal dispute, not as a universal rule of religious law or a validated historical judgment.

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Verse 55: God’s knowledge and the poet’s tribal claim

al-Ḥārith ibn Ḥillizah: Courtroom Advocacy, Three Proofs and Battle Similes (verses 47–55)

وَفَعَلْنَا بِهِمْ كَمَا عَلِمَ اللَّهُ وَمَا إِنْ لِلْحَائِنِينَ دِمَاءُ
Meaning: God knows what we did to them; the poet then asserts that no blood-claim remains, he asserts, for those he describes as doomed.

Kamā ʿalima Allāh intensifies the poet’s account by invoking God’s knowledge. Al-ḥāʾinīn is explained in the commentary in terms of those exposed to destruction or already perished. Dimāʾ can carry the sense of blood-claims or compensation as well as literal blood.

The wording wa-mā in ... dimāʾ is emphatic negation. It should be read as a claim advanced in a pre-Islamic tribal dispute, not as a universal rule of religious law or a validated historical judgment.