LessonsThe Dimyāṭī Maqāmah: Abū Ḥabīb’s Poetic ReplyQuiz

«أَنَّنِي أَقْضِي غَرِيمِيَ الدَّيْنَ مِنْ جِنْسِهِ»
That I repay the obligation to the person concerned in its own kind.

Anna-nī combines the emphatic particle “anna” with the first-person pronoun; aqḍī is a first-person imperfect. “Gharīmī” identifies the person concerned and “al-dayn” the debt; “min jinsihi” specifies the kind of repayment.

At the literal level we hear about accounts and debts; at the rhetorical level it is conduct answered by conduct. Vocabulary becomes clear only when connected to the poem’s larger comparison.

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The grammar of settling an account

The Dimyāṭī Maqāmah: Abū Ḥabīb’s Poetic Reply

«أَنَّنِي أَقْضِي غَرِيمِيَ الدَّيْنَ مِنْ جِنْسِهِ»
That I repay the obligation to the person concerned in its own kind.

Anna-nī combines the emphatic particle “anna” with the first-person pronoun; aqḍī is a first-person imperfect. “Gharīmī” identifies the person concerned and “al-dayn” the debt; “min jinsihi” specifies the kind of repayment.

At the literal level we hear about accounts and debts; at the rhetorical level it is conduct answered by conduct. Vocabulary becomes clear only when connected to the poem’s larger comparison.