“The Jú-yi Múliyán we call to mind, we long for those dear friends long left behind.”
Rudaki's most celebrated ode, said to have been sung before the Samanid Amir Nasr II to persuade him to end a long stay in Herat and return home to Bukhara — a verse about the pull of homeland and old friendship.
— Traditional Tajikistan Wisdom, Tajikistan
Source: Rudaki (c. 858-941 CE, born in Panjrud, in present-day Tajikistan), opening couplet of the ode 'Bu-ye Ju-ye Muliyan', recounted in Nizami Aruzi's Chahar Maqala (12th c.); English translation by Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, Vol. 1, 1902 — a widely quoted verse, treated as a proverb of homesickness
More Proverbs from Tajikistan
A man without a fatherland is like a nightingale without a garden.
Homeland and national identity are essential to a person's sense of belonging.
The rich eat kebab, the poor inhale the smoke.
A wry observation on economic inequality — the poor are left with only the smell of others' plenty.
A chicken you eat only once — its eggs, a hundred times.
Favors sustainable use of resources over a single short-term gain.
For a greedy man, even his own tomb is too small.
No amount of wealth satisfies greed — even in death the greedy remain unsatisfied.
The sun cannot be covered with a skirt.
The truth is too great to be hidden or suppressed, no matter how hard one tries.
A woman's work is worth more than the talk of a thousand men.
Celebrates the practical value of women's labor over empty words.