Ṭarafah: Mālik, Kinship Obligations, and Injustice from Relatives (Verses 68–78)

1. A growing distance within the family

After reflecting on death and the passing of time, the poem turns to a personal dispute. The speaker complains of his cousin Mālik: attempts to approach him lead only to distance, rebuke, and rejection. The issue is not merely temperament. Ṭarafah presents it as a failure of kinship obligations and mutual assistance.

The passage develops through complaint, examples of service to the family, a wish for a different patron, and an emphatic comparison of family injustice with the wound of a sword. It is important to distinguish the poet’s account of events from the literary force of his imagery.

2. Verse 68: he retreats when I approach

فَمَا لِي أَرَانِي وَابْنَ عَمِّي مَالِكًا
مَتَى أَدْنُ مِنْهُ يَنْأَ عَنِّي وَيَبْعُدِ
Meaning: I find myself with my cousin Mālik in such a relationship that whenever I draw near to him, he turns away from me and moves farther off.

Adnu conveys drawing near, while yanʾa means withdrawing to a distance. The opposing verbs make the emotional conflict visible through physical movement. Matā introduces a conditional, repeatable occurrence: the poet depicts this as Mālik’s recurring response, not a single accidental separation.

3. Verse 69: blame without a clear cause

يَلُومُ وَمَا أَدْرِي عَلَامَ يَلُومُنِي
كَمَا لَامَنِي فِي الْحَيِّ قُرْطُ بْنُ مَعْبَدِ
Meaning: He reproaches me, although I do not know for what he reproaches me, just as Qurṭ ibn Maʿbad once reproached me among the tribe.

ʿAlāma is a contracted form of ʿalā mā, “for what?” The repeated imperfect verb yalūmu suggests continuing blame, whereas lāmanī points to an earlier occurrence. Naming a previous critic gives the present grievance a history and makes Mālik’s conduct feel less isolated.

4. Verse 70: hope buried with the dead

وَأَيْأَسَنِي مِنْ كُلِّ خَيْرٍ طَلَبْتُهُ
كَأَنَّا وَضَعْنَاهُ إِلَى رَمْسِ مُلْحَدِ
Meaning: He has made me despair of every benefit I sought from him, as though we had placed that hoped-for good in a grave containing a burial niche.

Ayʾasanī means “he deprived me of hope”; rams is a grave, and mulḥad evokes a grave with a side niche. An immaterial prospect—hope of receiving good—is imagined as something buried. The burial image makes the loss seem final and especially difficult to reverse.

5. Verse 71: defending himself against accusation

عَلَى غَيْرِ ذَنْبٍ قُلْتُهُ غَيْرَ أَنَّنِي
نَشَدْتُ فَلَمْ أُغْفِلْ حَمُولَةَ مَعْبَدِ
Meaning: I committed no wrong to warrant this treatment; rather, I sought the missing camels and did not neglect the pack animals of Maʿbad.

Nashadtu means searching for something missing; ughfil means neglecting or abandoning, and ḥamūlah refers to beasts of burden, here camels. Maʿbad is identified in the commentary as the poet’s brother. Ṭarafah presents the action as family service, not wrongdoing; that contrast gives the complaint its force.

6. Verse 72: kinship duty in difficult times

وَقَرَّبْتُ بِالْقُرْبَى وَجَدِّكَ إِنَّنِي
مَتَى يَكُ أَمْرٌ لِلنَّكِيثَةِ أَشْهَدِ
Meaning: I have acted as one close through kinship; by your life, whenever an arduous affair arose, I made myself present.

Qarrabtu bi-l-qurbā draws repeated sound and meaning from the same root, strengthening the connection between kinship and nearness. Al-nakīthah denotes a difficult affair requiring strenuous effort. The construction matā yaku ... ashhadi emphasizes a recurring readiness to appear when family responsibilities become demanding.

7. Verse 73: protecting the family in crisis

وَإِنْ أُدْعَ لِلْجُلَّى أَكُنْ مِنْ حُمَاتِهَا
وَإِنْ يَأْتِكَ الْأَعْدَاءُ بِالْجَهْدِ أَجْهَدِ
Meaning: If I am summoned for a major crisis, I join those who defend against it; and if enemies press you with all their strength, I exert myself to the utmost as well.

Al-jullā means a great calamity, ḥumātuhā its defenders, and al-jahd strenuous exertion. The paired conditional clauses in ... akun / wa-in ... ajhadi reinforce one another: he claims not a single act of loyalty but a continuing habit of standing with his relatives under pressure.

8. Verse 74: an extreme image of defending honor

وَإِنْ يَقْذِفُوا بِالْقَذْعِ عِرْضَكَ أَسْقِهِمْ
بِكَأْسِ حِيَاضِ الْمَوْتِ قَبْلَ التَّهَدُّدِ
Meaning: If opponents insult your honor with abusive words, I would make them drink from the cups of death’s pools even before threats were exchanged.

Al-qadhʿ is obscene or abusive speech, al-ʿirḍ one’s honor, and ḥiyāḍ al-mawt literally “the pools of death.” Asqihim bi-kaʾs turns the language of offering a drink into an image of violent retaliation. This belongs to the hyperbolic rhetoric of pre-Islamic tribal boasting, not to a present-day prescription for conduct.

9. Verse 75: punished as though guilty

بِلَا حَدَثٍ أَحْدَثْتُهُ وَكَمُحْدِثٍ
هِجَائِي وَقَذْفِي بِالشَّكَاةِ وَمَطْرَدِي
Meaning: I have done no deed that could count as an offense, yet I am treated like someone who has committed one: I am satirized, complained against, and driven away.

Ḥadath denotes an occurrence or offense; hijāʾī the satire directed at me, al-shakāh complaint, and maṭradī my expulsion or rejection. The contrast bilā ḥadath ... wa-ka-muḥdith is the core: innocent in his own account, but made to bear the social consequences of guilt.

10. Verse 76: if my protector were someone else

فَلَوْ كَانَ مَوْلَايَ امْرَأً هُوَ غَيْرَهُ
لَفَرَّجَ كَرْبِي أَوْ لَأَنْظَرَنِي غَدِي
Meaning: If my patron or protector were someone other than this man, he would relieve my distress—or at least allow me a little respite.

Mawlāya here points to a near relation or protector, not necessarily a manumitter. Farraja karbī is an idiom for easing hardship, and anẓaranī means granting time or respite. The law ... la- construction imagines an unreal alternative, thereby highlighting the failure of the protector the speaker actually has.

11. Verse 77: the protector becomes the oppressor

وَلَكِنَّ مَوْلَايَ امْرُؤٌ هُوَ خَانِقِي
عَلَى الشُّكْرِ وَالتَّسْآلِ أَوْ أَنَا مُفْتَدِي
Meaning: Yet my own protector is the one who constricts me, as though choking me; I must approach him through thanks, petitions, or attempts to redeem myself from the predicament.

Khāniqī derives from kh-n-q, “to strangle,” and depicts pressure in an intensified metaphorical form. Al-shukr wa-l-tasʾāl evoke gratitude and requests; muftadī suggests someone seeking release by a ransom or sacrifice. The verse brings the contrast between expected shelter and actual harm to its sharpest point.

12. Verse 78: the pain of injustice from kin

وَظُلْمُ ذَوِي الْقُرْبَى أَشَدُّ مَضَاضَةً
عَلَى الْمَرْءِ مِنْ وَقْعِ الْحُسَامِ الْمُهَنَّدِ
Meaning: Injustice inflicted by close relatives hurts a person more intensely than the blow of a sharp sword of Indian steel.

Dhawī al-qurbā are close relatives; maḍāḍah a deeply felt pain; waqʿ the impact of a blow; and al-ḥusām al-muhannad is a sharp sword associated with Indian steel. The comparative ashaddu ... min gives the conclusion its power: betrayal by one’s own family can wound more deeply than a bodily injury.

13. Nearness and distance as paired verbs

The opening verse hinges on adnu / yanʾa. The first verb expresses an effort to approach; the second, the relative’s contrary movement away. Wa-yabʿudi intensifies the distancing. The poet turns an emotional failure into a visible movement in opposite directions.

In matā adnu minhu yanʾa ʿannī, matā is a conditional particle, adnu its verb, and yanʾa the answer. This syntactic pattern makes each renewed effort to approach trigger renewed estrangement in the speaker’s account.

14. The grammatical contraction ʿalāma

In ʿalāma yalūmunī, the underlying form is ʿalā mā. When interrogative mā follows a preposition, its alif is typically dropped, as in bima, lima, fīma.

The question is not merely an attempt to obtain a reason. The speaker claims that no adequate reason for blame exists. The same construction therefore works on two levels: grammatically it is interrogation, and rhetorically it challenges the legitimacy of the reproach.

15. Buried hope as a figurative image

The phrase ka-annā waḍaʿnāhu ilā ramsin mulḥad concerns the disappearance of hope for a benefit, but its image belongs to burial. Giving an expectation the treatment of a body placed in a grave makes the lost prospect seem inaccessible.

Rams names a grave, while mulḥad specifies burial with a side niche. Ka-anna establishes the likeness. The passage should be understood as forceful figurative language, not a report of an actual funeral.

16. A claim of loyalty supported by examples

The poet does more than claim to be loyal. He supplies two kinds of service: searching for Maʿbad’s camels and appearing when the family faces hardship. This moves the complaint from an abstract declaration of loyalty to specific actions offered as evidence.

The named relative in nashadtu ... ḥamūlata Maʿbad and the conditional readiness in matā yaku ... ashhadi complement one another. They are part of the speaker’s defense as presented within the poem, not independently established biographical records.

17. Nakīthah and jullā: degrees of adversity

Al-nakīthah and al-jullā both concern adversity, but not with identical emphasis. The former evokes a difficult entanglement calling for sustained effort; the latter a grave, exceptional crisis.

ExpressionSense
أَمْرٌ لِلنَّكِيثَةِA hard affair requiring exertion
أُدْعَ لِلْجُلَّىBeing summoned to a great crisis
مِنْ حُمَاتِهَاJoining those who defend in that crisis

Together the terms make the speaker’s claim of steadfastness more demanding and forceful.

18. Parallel conditional structures and repetition

Conditional constructions recur in the speaker’s pledges: matā yaku ... ashhadi, wa-in udʿa ... akun, and wa-in yaʾtika ... ajhadi. Each condition is followed by a response in which the poet claims presence, protection, or exertion.

Udʿa is a passive imperfect: “if I am summoned.” Akun is a jussive form of the defective verb kāna. The parallel syntax makes the promise sound regular and dependable: in each new kind of danger, the speaker presents himself as available.

19. Honor, abusive words, and martial hyperbole

Verse 74 introduces ʿirḍ for personal honor, qadhʿ for abusive speech, and ḥiyāḍ al-mawt for a scene of destructive combat. The sequence moves from a verbal attack on reputation to a boast about retaliating violently.

Asqihim bi-kaʾs literally belongs to the act of giving someone a drink. Here it threatens to expose opponents to death. Extending an ordinary verb into another sphere creates a striking, unsettling image. The verse’s violent self-praise should be interpreted as part of its historical tribal rhetoric.

20. Innocence contrasted with the treatment of guilt

In bilā ḥadath aḥdaththuhu wa-ka-muḥdith, three forms stem from the root ḥ-d-th: ḥadath, an occurrence or offense; aḥdaththuhu, “I brought it about”; and muḥdith, a person who has committed such an act. The related forms sharpen the paradox between claimed innocence and imposed blame.

The subsequent series hijāʾī, qadhfī bi-l-shakāh, maṭradī names satire, accusations or complaint, and expulsion. The poet frames this sequence as punishment imposed without a matching offense.

21. Mawlā in its context

Mawlā can describe several relationships in Arabic: helper, protector, ally, or someone bound through a close association. Here the poet speaks of a relative from whom he expects support. Restricting the term to the technical sense “manumitter” would misread this context.

The recurrence fa-law kāna mawlāya ... wa-lākinna mawlāya puts the protector he wishes he had opposite the protector he actually has. This contrast prepares for the exceptionally forceful description of emotional pressure in the next verse.

22. Law and lākinna: expectation versus reality

In verse 76, law kāna ... la-farraja constructs an unreal alternative: with another protector, distress would be relieved. Verse 77 overturns that hope through wa-lākinna mawlāya: the actual protector is himself the source of pressure.

Farraja karbī is an idiom about opening or easing constriction, while khāniqī intensifies the sensation of constriction to choking. The opposition between release and suffocation condenses the whole emotional argument into bodily images.

23. Family injustice and the sword: analyzing the comparison

The closing verse compares ẓulm dhawī al-qurbā, injustice by close kin, with waqʿ al-ḥusām al-muhannad, the strike of a sharp sword, in intensity of pain. The comparative ashaddu maḍāḍatan ... min ranks the emotional wound above the physical one.

ElementExplanation
SubjectInjustice inflicted by relatives
Concrete imageThe blow of a sharp sword
Basis of comparisonIntensity of suffering
Rhetorical effectMaking emotional injury more vivid than bodily injury

The force comes from expectations of care being violated by the people closest to the speaker.

24. Key vocabulary and syntactic connections

Small grammatical choices create major contrasts across the passage. Adnu / yanʾa establish approach versus withdrawal; ashhadi / ajhadi couple presence with effort; and mawlāya / khāniqī oppose the expected protector to the actual source of suffering.

WordMeaning
يَنْأَHe moves away
رَمْسGrave
حَمُولَةPack camels
قَذْعAbusive speech
مَضَاضَةIntense pain
الْمُهَنَّدA sword associated with Indian steel

25. From personal grievance to a general insight

The architecture of verses 68–78 moves from a particular grievance to a generalizable reflection. At the beginning, Mālik is named. In the middle, there are details about a brother’s camels, tribal defense, and the expected role of a protector. By the end, the poet no longer names one man but speaks of dhawī al-qurbā, relatives more broadly.

That change makes the final line memorable beyond its immediate dispute. A specific hurt becomes an image of expectation betrayed. The sequence is nearness sought → loyalty claimed → loyalty unreturned → pain caused by kin.