LessonsZuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā: Age, Mortality, Honor, and Keeping Promises (Verses 43–52)Quiz

رَأَيْتُ الْمَنَايَا خَبْطَ عَشْوَاءَ مَنْ تُصِبْ ۞ تُمِتْهُ وَمَنْ تُخْطِئْ يُعَمَّرْ فَيَهْرَمِ
I have seen the strikes of death like the blundering blows of a night-blind she-camel: whom they hit, they kill; whom they miss, lives on and grows old.

Al-manāyā denotes deaths or fates of death. Khabṭ ʿashwāʾ portrays the errant striking of a she-camel unable to see clearly. The powerful comparison concerns mortality’s unpredictability from the human viewpoint; it is poetic imagery, not a systematic doctrinal account of death’s ultimate causes.

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Verse 48: Death and the blind she-camel

Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā: Age, Mortality, Honor, and Keeping Promises (Verses 43–52)

رَأَيْتُ الْمَنَايَا خَبْطَ عَشْوَاءَ مَنْ تُصِبْ ۞ تُمِتْهُ وَمَنْ تُخْطِئْ يُعَمَّرْ فَيَهْرَمِ
I have seen the strikes of death like the blundering blows of a night-blind she-camel: whom they hit, they kill; whom they miss, lives on and grows old.

Al-manāyā denotes deaths or fates of death. Khabṭ ʿashwāʾ portrays the errant striking of a she-camel unable to see clearly. The powerful comparison concerns mortality’s unpredictability from the human viewpoint; it is poetic imagery, not a systematic doctrinal account of death’s ultimate causes.