‘Love, my friends’ [Archives:2003/06/Last Page]

Written by Abdulrahman Mutahhar
Translated by Janet Watson
M – ‘Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.’
What comes after that, Mus’ida?
Ma – It goes, ‘Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.
It’s not for him who lit up his shop in the light of day.
Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.
It’s not for him who collects money then breakfasts in prison.
Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.
It’s not for the trader who was born yesterday.’
M – Very poetic! And I’ve been thinking that every saying and proverb has got a story behind them which gives us an insight into life and people.
Ma – I just learn the sayings from listening to other people. I don’t know whether they’ve got any stories behind them, and I don’t even bother asking!
M – Well I’m going to tell you the story behind that saying now!
Ma – Okay, go on!
M – They say that there were three people. Two of them were traders and the third collected tax [zakah ] and handed it over to the state. The first trader went bankrupt because of all the goods he used to buy on credit. They lit a candle and put it over the door of his shop in broad daylight as a sign to his creditors. The second trader went into business without knowing anything about it, and was bankrupt within the space of three months.
Ma – Go on, what about the third person, the tax collector?
M – The third person collected tax, and rather than hand it over to the state treasury, he embezzled it. In the end, he was sent to prison. At that time, there was a lovely girl. Each of them wanted to marry her, but it never turned out, because the first trader was bankrupt, the second trader was bankrupt and in debt, and the tax collector was locked away in prison. Later a saying emerged from the story and it became the subject of a popular song.
‘Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.
It’s not for him who lit up his shop in the light of day.
Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.
It’s not for him who collects money then breakfasts in prison.
Love, my friends, needs heart, strength and means.
It’s not for the trader who was born yesterday.’
Ma – Tell me, though, Mus’id, is that really a true story, or did someone make it up?
M – If you think about it, you’ll realize that it’s based on truth. My nephew hasn’t got any patience. He wanted to get rich overnight, whatever it took. He opened up a shop and curried favor with the importers and wholesalers. He acted very honest and upright so that they would trust him, and they began to give him goods worth hundreds of thousands of riyals. He would give them half the cost at the time, and the rest once he had sold the goods. But, unfortunately, he went off the straight and narrow. He became excessively wasteful and extravagant. In the end, he had to leave the business altogether, without a penny to his name and up to his ears in debt, and they lit a candle over the door of his shop.
Ma – Go on!
M – Other people, Mus’ida, set up a business without knowing anything about it beforehand, and often without a clue about how the market works or how traders operate; people like these usually go bankrupt within a very short time. Some people, who are entrusted by the state to collect taxes and take it to the state treasury, betray that trust. They embezzle the money, and end up eating fenugreek and bread in prison.

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