In aw yaʿtaliq baʿḍa al-nufūsi ḥimāmuhā, death is portrayed as something that seizes a life. Baʿḍ al-nufūs indicates that lives are taken at different moments, but each remains exposed to mortality.
It would be a lexical error to read ḥimām here as ‘pigeons’ because of its familiar sound. The image concerns the closing of opportunity before death arrives.
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Labīd ibn Rabīʿah: Resolve, Nawār and Pre-Islamic Night Gatherings (Verses 54–61)
In aw yaʿtaliq baʿḍa al-nufūsi ḥimāmuhā, death is portrayed as something that seizes a life. Baʿḍ al-nufūs indicates that lives are taken at different moments, but each remains exposed to mortality.
It would be a lexical error to read ḥimām here as ‘pigeons’ because of its familiar sound. The image concerns the closing of opportunity before death arrives.