«مَا عِنْدَكُمْ لِابْنِ سَبِيلٍ مُرْمِلِ / نِضْوِ سُرًى خَابِطِ لَيْلٍ أَلْيَلِ»
What can you offer a penniless wayfarer, worn thin by night travel and stumbling through pitch darkness?
Ibn sabīl means a wayfarer; murmil destitute; niḍw wasted or worn down; surā travelling at night.
Each epithet intensifies the traveller’s condition. Layl al-yāl uses related forms to suggest an exceptionally dark night rather than merely repeating the same meaning.
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The Kūfan Maqāmah: Abū Zayd’s Strange Tale and the Midnight Knock
«مَا عِنْدَكُمْ لِابْنِ سَبِيلٍ مُرْمِلِ / نِضْوِ سُرًى خَابِطِ لَيْلٍ أَلْيَلِ»
What can you offer a penniless wayfarer, worn thin by night travel and stumbling through pitch darkness?
Ibn sabīl means a wayfarer; murmil destitute; niḍw wasted or worn down; surā travelling at night.
Each epithet intensifies the traveller’s condition. Layl al-yāl uses related forms to suggest an exceptionally dark night rather than merely repeating the same meaning.