“Whoever seeks something will find it — and if he does not find it, he will soon land close to it.”

Al-Maydani records that the first to say it was ‘Amir ibn az-Zarib, sage and chief of the tribe of ‘Adwan before Islam, in the advice he gave his people when they asked him to name a successor. It is kinder than the rhyme it is often confused with, “whoever strives, finds”: it allows that the seeker may miss, and promises that the effort still carries him near.