And a brown, straight spear standing upright when my companions sleep,
Lightly clad, whose waist-wraps do not conceal it,
At its top is a mother for us by which we guide ourselves,
A gatherer of affairs whose command we do not disobey.
When it alights, it is said: "Light down!" and when it moves at dawn,
It moves possessing a host by which we attain glory.
He means by his words, "At its top is a mother for us," that at the head of the spear is a banner around which they gather when alighting, traveling, and encountering the enemy. And it has been said that Mecca was named "the Mother of the Towns" (Umm al-Qurā) because of its precedence ahead of all of them and its gathering of what is besides it. And it was said: It was named so only because the earth was spread forth from it, so it became a mother to all of it. Of that is the statement of Ḥumayd ibn Thawr al-Hilālī:
When fifty is your mother, there will not be
For your ailment—unless you die—a physician.
Because fifty comprehends the numbers below it, so he called it a mother for one who has reached it.
Notes
- (1) His Dīwān: 183, with variation in some narrations, and the narration of al-Ṭabarī is the best of the two. Asmar: meaning a spear with a brown shaft. Qawwām: he remains standing awake through the night. Khafīf al-thiyāb: meaning the banner. Al-uzur: the back. He says: a brown spear, bare of garments; the banner does not cover its back as clothing covers the back of the wearer.
- (2) In the Dīwān: "yahtadī", and the correct reading is "nahtadī". And his mother which he mentioned is the banner, and it is said of the banner and what is wrapped around the spearhead from it: "umm al-rumḥ" (the mother of the spear). And "jimāʿ umūr": meaning it gathers them, so they assemble upon it. In the hadith: "Narrate to me a word that is comprehensive (jimāʿ). He said: Fear Allah regarding what you know." And "umūr" is the plural of "amr": meaning grave matters. As for his statement: "We do not disobey its command (amran)", it is from "amr" (command), the opposite of prohibition.
- (3) "Nazalat" (it descended): meaning the flag. "Ghadat": it traveled in the morning. In the printed edition: "dhāt tazrīq", which is an error. Al-bazrīq: the huge procession in which there are groups of people. And his statement: "We attain glory thereby": meaning we raid under its shade, so we prevail over our enemy, gain victory, and obtain spoils, and that is glory. In the Dīwān: "takhālu bihā fakhran", and in the manuscript: "takhālu lahā", as if it is a description of the flag itself, shaking and inclining out of pride and vanity due to the abundance of its followers from raiders and horsemen.
- (4) The poetry is not by Ḥumayd ibn Thawr, nor is it in his Dīwān; rather, it is by Abū Muḥammad al-Taymī ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ayyūb, a client of Banū Taym, then of Banū Sulaym, from the people of Kufa, one of the poets of the Abbasid state. He was one of the licentious, shameless poets who described wine; he was a friend to Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī and his son Isḥāq, and a boon companion to them. Then he connected with the Barmakids and praised them, and connected with Yazīd ibn Mazyad, remaining devoted to him until Yazīd died. Al-Aghānī 18: 115. And this verse is from a poem of his, some of whose verses were narrated by al-Jāḥiẓ in al-Bayān 3: 195, Ibn Qutayba in ʿUyūn al-Akhbār 2: 322, al-Rāghib in Muḥāḍarāt al-Udabāʾ 2: 198, and Majmūʿat al-Maʿānī: 124, and the poetry in all of them is attributed to Abū Muḥammad al-Taymī, which is:
If seventy is your age, there is no
doctor for your ailment except that you die.
And a man who has traveled to a watering place is close to reaching its drinking.
Whenever you are alone in time, do not say "I am alone," but say, "A watcher is over me."
When a generation passes and you are left behind in a generation, you are a stranger.
For the second verse there is a story in 3: 1, and see 3: 221; he mentioned the second and fourth verses and said: "Daʿbal said: Narrators claim that it belongs to a Bedouin from Banū Asad." They differed in the narration of his saying "seventy is your age": in some it is "fifty", and "sixty". I have not found the narration "your mother" in place of "your age" except in the book of al-Ṭabarī alone.
This translation was produced with AI assistance and is part of an ongoing human-review process. Found a mistake? Use the feedback option in the reader menu.
