The ass
animal · 8 works · 10 mentions · 13 anchored passages
the ass · الحمار · al-ḥimār · ass · the donkey · Abū Ziyād · a hard-working ass · al-ʻayr · asses · the donkey-foals
spoken of as
1 expressionAss4 mentions
Stromata (Greek) · Law in a Free State (English) · Anabasis (Greek)
" But if knowledge does not belong to all, then writings are, for the many, "a lyre to an ass," as the proverb-makers say.
in the texts
Kitāb al-Safīnah al-Nūḥīyah fī al-sakīnah al-rūḥīyah
The donkey, invoked first as the type of appetitive animal motion and then as a cutting comparison for the ignorant but diligent worshipper.
The worshipper who prays and fasts but does not know fasting and prayer and does not know God is like a hard-working ass.
and it walks along the road, not for its companion’s benefit, but in flight from the stick and in seeking to have the heavy load set down from its back.
So the cock and the ass are ignorant of what is ugly in their act, and they have a present need to satisfy the appetite of the belly and the genitals, and so they perform their act before a throng of people.
Stromata
The ass, used proverbially for those incapable of appreciating fine things.
" But if knowledge does not belong to all, then writings are, for the many, "a lyre to an ass," as the proverb-makers say.
"With the innocent man you shall be innocent, and with the elect you shall be elect, and with the perverse you shall be perverse.
"The ox knew its owner, and the ass the manger of its master;
Risālah fī ʻilm al-akhlāq
The donkey of the admonitory verse, set against the horse as the low against the noble.
when a sea offers itself, cleansing with dust is not lawful for me — and upon the clearness of the nights turbidity comes to pass, and the beasts have learned the scent of lions — with the brow of the ass the hoof of the horse goes forth.
Letters
Animal cited in the semantic argument about 'knowing'.
'The ox,' it says, 'knew its owner'—so then, by your account, the ox knew the substance of its master;
Ansāb al-ʻArab al-qudamāʼ
The animal whose name looks like an insult and is shown to carry endurance and long life, borne by Issachar in the Torah, by the caliph Marwān, and by a Lebanese village in the plural.
“The Arabs named their children Kalb and Ḥimār and Ḥajar and Juʻal and Ḥanẓalah and Qird only by way of taking a good omen from it.
Name of the village — by-name of its people The people of Jabbāʻ — the firs » Nīḥā — the Nawar » Baʻadhrān — the foxes » al-Mukhtārah — the wolves » ʻAyn Qanyā — the firs » ʻAmmā Ṭūr — the strutting cocks » al-Mazraʻah — the cattle » ʻAynbāl — the donkey-foals » Baqlīn — the sheep » Jadīdat al-Shūf — the dogs (1)
On the other side, they gave the animals the names of men or their kunyahs:
The Law of Torts
The plaintiff's fettered donkey, turned loose on a highway and run over by the defendant's wagon in the celebrated 'donkey case,' Davies v. Mann.
There the plaintiff had turned his ass loose in a highway with its forefeet fettered, and it was run over by the defendant’s waggon, going at “a smartish pace.
Law in a Free State
Asses listed among beasts of burden in the analogy about labour displacement.
if there were no horses, asses, oxen, other beasts of burden, or engines, it is clear that men would be required to do the lifting, carrying, and pulling themselves, just as they did under the Pharaohs who built the Pyramids.
Anabasis
Animal invoked in a proverb about wantonness and fatigue.
And Xenophon said, Well, really, with weather of the sort you describe and provisions used up and no chance even to get a smell of wine, when many of us were becoming exhausted with hardships and the enemy were at our heels, if at such a time as that I wantonly abused you, I admit that I am more wanton even than the ass, which, because of its wantonness, so the saying runs, is not subject to fatigue.