The sequence law shāʾa rabbī ... fa-aṣbaḥtu functions as one imagined condition and consequence: had the poet been born into those prominent lineages, wealth and distinguished offspring might have followed.
Here law does not promise a future event; it constructs an unrealized alternative. Treating the imagined result as an event that actually occurred would misread the verse.
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Ṭarafah: Character, Lineage, the Sword, and the Camels (Verses 79–88)
The sequence law shāʾa rabbī ... fa-aṣbaḥtu functions as one imagined condition and consequence: had the poet been born into those prominent lineages, wealth and distinguished offspring might have followed.
Here law does not promise a future event; it constructs an unrealized alternative. Treating the imagined result as an event that actually occurred would misread the verse.