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.

"Ode on the Conquest of Amorium", ll. 1-2, translated by Julia Bray, "Al-Mu'taşim's 'bridge of toil' and Abū Tammām's Amorium qaşīda", in Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions in Memory of Norman Calder, edited by G. R. Hawting et al., Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 12 (Oxford UP, 2000) p. 49

The sword is more truthful than books, its edge marks the divide between earnestness and jest. | James E. Montgomery and Tahera Qutbuddin, in The Life and Times of Abu Tammam, edited by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā l-Ṣūlī and Beatrice Gruendler (NYU Press, 2015)