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Abu Tammam Quotes

796–845

Abu Tammam (أبو تمام; c. 796/807 - 845) was an Arab Muslim poet. He is well known for compiling the Hamasah, which is considered to be one of the greatest anthologies of Arabic poetry ever assembled.

Random Abu Tammam quote

5 quotes

If a man lingers too long at home, it shows
on his face—so travel and refresh it!
People like the sun more, I know,
for not shining upon them perpetually.

The Life and Times of Abu Tammam (2015)

The sword is more truthful than books,
its edge marks the divide between earnestness and jest.

The sword gives truer tidings than do scriptures;
its edge is what tells zeal from vanity;
White blades, not the black letters on the page — these
reveal misguided doubts for what they are.

If poetry could be exhausted, then it would already have been so
by the collected water in your cisterns, in past times.
Rather, it is the rainfall of the mind: some clouds
may vanish, only to be followed by more clouds.

A victory at which Heaven threw wide its gates,
which Earth put on new dress to celebrate:
O battle of Amorium, from which
our hopes returned engorged with milk and honey,
The Muslims hast thou fixed in the ascendant,
pagans and pagandom fixed in decline!

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Abu Tammam (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.