Nusaymat Al-Hima

By Unknown Author

بحر الطويل

فَلَمّا رآني العاذِلون مُتَيَّما … كَئيباً بِمَن أَهوى وَعَقلي ذاهِبُ

So when the censurers saw me, raptured in and melancholic over the One whom I love, and my intellect gone…

رَثوا لي وَقالوا كُنت بِالأَمس عاقِلًا … أَصابَتكَ عَينٌ قُلتُ عَينٌ وَحاجِبُ

They sang a eulogy for me and said: “Just yesterday you were sane; an evil eye has struck you!” I replied: “It was an eye and a brow!”¹

1. As the evil eye is able to attract black magick or jinn possession, rendering the victim to lose their sanity. So the reproachers treated him as insane, but he corrects them: “It was an eye and a brow!” Meaning it was the glance of a beauty, muse, or beloved which drove him love-mad! Likewise, it’s a well-known literary device to compare the beloved’s beauty to an enchantment, spell, witchcraft, etc., all things connected to magick. ↩︎