He makes a show—like a well-meaning adviser—of tender concern, yet he hides within him tempests of unbridled rancor.
O Muṭʿim, I never failed you on a day that demanded courage, nor when weighty affairs pressed hard;
not on the day of dispute, when your bitterest foes approached—deft debaters, veterans of every contest between adversaries.
O Muṭʿim, the people have thrust upon you a course of action; but whenever the matter is left to me, I shall not be found wanting.
May God requite ʿAbd Shams and Nawfal on our behalf—with a punishment of evil, swift and not deferred—
by a just balance that does not cheat by so much as a grain, its witness arising from the soul itself, free of all bias.
How witless are the minds of a people who have exchanged us for the sons of Khalaf—no more than searing dust and coarse desert scrub.
Yet we are the very core of Hāshim’s lofty crest, the household of Quṣayy in the earliest ordeals;
while Sahm and Makhzūm have joined forces and roused against us enemies of every obscure and ignoble stock.
Sons of ʿAbd Manāf, you are the best of your clan—do not admit every intruder into your counsel!
By my life, you have grown weak and inept, and have produced a plan that disjoints the very limbs.
Only yesterday you were a single bundle fueling one cauldron; now you stoke the fires of many pots and kettles.
So let our estrangement, our abandonment, our being left in the mountain strongholds, be welcome news to the sons of ʿAbd Manāf.
(1) “al-ʿārimāt”: the severe ones. ad-dākhilāt (plural of dākhila) refers to intention, resolve, and disposition. (See al-Lisān and at-Tāj under the roots ʿ-r-m and d-kh-l.)
(2) In the H version it reads “ashiddah” instead of “al-diddah”; in the Ṭ version “min al-khuṣūm,” as in Sīrat Ibn Hishām and the authenticated H text. “al-masājil” is reported both with jīm and with ḥāʾ. Those who pronounce it with jīm derive it from masājala, “to dispute,” originally denoting drawing water with a sijl (bucket) and pouring it; thus masājil may be understood as the plural by eliding the extra alif of the pattern mafāʿil, or as the plural of misjal (with kasra under mīm), meaning “opponents.” Those who pronounce it al-masāḥil (with ḥāʾ) take it as the plural of masḥal, “tongue,” not as “opponents” but in a genitive construction meaning “those whose tongues are restrained,” i.e., verbal adversaries. (al-Rawḍ 2:27)
(3) “samūkum”: they imposed upon you. al-wāʾil: the one who escapes (survives). (al-Lisān under s-w-m; wā-ʾ-l.)
(4) “lā yakhussu”: it does not diminish. The Ṭ reading has “lā yakhīs”; elsewhere in the Sīra one finds “yaḥiss” (with ṣād and ḥāʾ), from ḥass, “to remove hair”; and al-ʿāʾil, from their phrase “ʿāla in the scale,” meaning “it diminishes or increases.” (al-Lisān and at-Tāj under kha-ss-s; ʿ-w-l; al-Rawḍ 2:27.)
(5) “qīḍan”: i.e., an exchange. Thus the Prophet ﷺ said to Ḍu al-Jawshan: “If you wish, I will exchange you for the choicest of Badr’s shields.” He replied: “I would not exchange it today for anything,” meaning one of his horses. “al-ghiyāṭil”: the clan of Banū Sihm, named after their mother al-Ghayṭila. (al-Rawḍ 2:27.)
(6) “al-ṭiml”: the thief, the obscene man, and the poor. (al-Rawḍ 2:27.)
(7) In the H manuscript: “adhhantum” instead of “wahantum.”
(8) In the Ṭ manuscript: “alāna aḥṭāb,” as also found in the authenticated H text and in Sīrat Ibn Hishām. As-Suhaylī comments in al-Rawḍ (2:26) on the verse “and you were once fuel for the cauldron”: “aḥṭāb” appears morphologically as the plural of ḥaṭab (firewood), but its diminutives are “ḥuṭayb” and “rukayb,” so it is not a regular collective plural. He prefers “ḥaṭṭāb” as the plural of ḥāṭib, which does not admit diminution except by reverting to the singular (“ḥuwayṭibūn”). The sense of the verse is that you were once united in gathering wood for a single cauldron, whereas now you are divided.