«فَأَبْرَزْتُ دِينَارًا وَقُلْتُ لَهُ اخْتِبَارًا: إِنْ مَدَحْتَهُ نَظْمًا فَهُوَ لَكَ حَتْمًا»
I produced a dinar and challenged him: if you praise it in verse, it is certainly yours.
Al-Ḥārith is not predicting a hypothetical future when he says in madaḥtahu naẓman. By displaying a dinar, he makes a conditional offer whose fulfilment depends on immediate poetic performance.
Fa-huwa laka ḥatman emphatically promises the reward. The exchange is at once a demonstration of literary skill and a transaction with an economic outcome. The reader must keep the offer, condition, and promised payment together.
Practice: Does the sentence award the coin without the poem? No; payment is conditional.
PhraseSpeech-act functionIn madaḥtahuConditionFa-huwa laka ḥatmanConditional commitment