Labīd Quotes

Abū Aqīl Labīd ibn Rabīʿa ibn Mālik al-ʿĀmirī was an Arab poet from Hejaz and a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

He belonged to the Bani Amir, a division of the tribe of the Hawazin. In his younger years he was an active warrior, and his verse is largely concerned with inter-tribal disputes. Later, he was sent by a sick uncle to get a remedy from Muhammad at Medina and on this occasion was much influenced by a part of the Koran, shortest Surah, 'Al-Kawthar'. He accepted Islam soon after, but seems then to have ceased writing. In Umar's caliphate he is said to have settled in Kufa. Tradition ascribes to him a long life, but dates given are uncertain and contradictory. One of his poems is contained in the Mu'allaqat.

His muruwwa is highlighted in the story that he vowed to feed people whenever the east wind began to blow, and to continue so doing until it stopped. Al-Walid 'Uqba, leader of the Kuffa, sent him one hundred camels to enable him to keep his vow.

In an elegy composed for Nu'mh Mundhii, Labid wrote:

Every thing, but Allah, is vain

And all happiness, unconditionally, will vanish

When a man is on a night journey, he thinks that he has accomplished some deed

But man spends his life in hopes

...

If you do not trust your self, approve it

Perhaps the past would unclose it to you

When you do not find a father other than 'Adnan and Ma'ad,

The judge will punish you

On the day when every body will be informed of his deeds

When the record of his life is opened before Allah

أَلا كُلُّ شَيْءٍ مَا خَلا اللَّهَ بَاطِلٌ

Muhammad said regarding the first verse of the above eulogy,

❝The Prophet said, "The most true words said by a poet was the words of Labid." He said, Verily, Everything except Allah is perishable and Umaiya bin As-Salt was about to be a Muslim .'❞

[Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhāri, The Book of Manners, Ḥadīth No. 3841] Wikipedia

✵ 560 – 661

Labīd: 4 quotes 1 like

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Ruin 3

Famous Labīd Quotes

“Yea, everything is vain, except only God alone,
and every pleasant thing must one day vanish away!
And all the race of men—there shall surely come among them
a Fearful Woe, whereby their fingers shall grow pale:
And every mother's son, though his life be lengthened out
to the utmost bound, comes home at last to the Grave:
And every man shall know one day his labour's worth,
when his loss or gain is cast up on the Judgment Day.”

Labīd

translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, 1881 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881), The Poem of Labīd

“I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants;
but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 42 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
Couplets

“Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!”

Labīd

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
Couplets

“DESOLATE are the mansions of the fair, the stations in Minia, where they rested, and those where they fixed their abodes! Wild are the hills of Goul, and deserted is the summit of Rijaam.
The canals of Rayaan are destroyed: the remains of them are laid bare and smoothed by the floods, like characters engraved on the solid rocks.
Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!
The rainy constellations of spring have made their hills green and luxuriant: the drops from the thunder-clouds have drenched them with profuse as well as with gentle showers:
Showers, from every nightly cloud, from every cloud veiling the horizon at day-break, and from every evening cloud, responsive with hoarse murmurs.
Here the wild eringo-plants raise their tops: here the antelopes bring forth their young, by the sides of the valley: and here the ostriches drop their eggs.
The large-eyed wild-cows lie suckling their young, a few days old—their young, who will soon become a herd on the plain.
The torrents have cleared the rubbish, and disclosed the traces of habitations, as the reeds of a writer restore effaced letters in a book;
Or as the black dust, sprinkled over the varied marks on a fair hand, brings to view with a brighter tint the blue stains of woad.
I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants; but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41-42. First Stanza, lines 1-10 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881)