LessonsʿAmr ibn Kulthūm: Uncertain Time, the Beloved and Grief (Verses 12–22)Quiz

فَمَا وَجَدَتْ كَوَجْدِي أُمُّ سَقْبٍ أَضَلَّتْهُ فَرَجَّعَتِ الْحَنِينَا
Not even a mother-camel that has lost her calf and repeatedly calls out in grief has sorrow comparable to mine.

Wajdī is acute emotional distress; umm saqb is the mother of a young camel, and farajjaʿati l-ḥanīnā denotes repeated plaintive calls.

With famā wajadat ka-wajdī, the poet asserts that even this intense maternal grief does not equal his own. The comparison is emphatically hyperbolic.

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Verse 19: A mother-camel mourning her calf

ʿAmr ibn Kulthūm: Uncertain Time, the Beloved and Grief (Verses 12–22)

Wajdī is acute emotional distress; umm saqb is the mother of a young camel, and farajjaʿati l-ḥanīnā denotes repeated plaintive calls.

With famā wajadat ka-wajdī, the poet asserts that even this intense maternal grief does not equal his own. The comparison is emphatically hyperbolic.