And after him came his father, Hilal ibn Abdullah, who compiled "Al-Amthal" (Proverbs). He did not include any coined proverbs, but he excelled in compiling them to the point where they were considered the best of what was written on proverbs.

Al-Maydani, who died in 400 AH, compiled a book and remained so until Abu al-Fadl ibn al-Husayn al-Naysaburi came. Many writers before him, as mentioned, compiled books. He compiled a book called "Majma' al-Amthal" (Collection of Proverbs), in which he included over six thousand eloquent and coined Arabic proverbs. He provided a comprehensive explanation of the eloquent ones and excelled in compilation to the extent that his book became the largest and best book written on Arabic proverbs up to his time, and it remains so to this day. In the biography of Al-Maydani in Kashf al-Zunun, it is stated: "Al-Zamakhshari, after compiling Al-Mustaqsa fi al-Amthal, came across Al-Maydani's collection of proverbs and found it to be excellent in compilation, arrangement, clarity of expression, and richness of benefits." Thus, Al-Maydani's book covered eloquent Arabic proverbs, leaving no room for discussion on anything other than coined proverbs, as they are renewed in every land and in every era.

After Al-Maydani, Shihab al-Din ibn Abi al-Ash'ath, the author of Al-Basa'ir, excelled in coined proverbs in the 6th century AH. He compiled a collection of proverbs from the people of his time. No one wrote on coined proverbs after him until the early 8th century AH, when a collection by Sharaf al-Din ibn Asad appeared, containing about a thousand Egyptian colloquial proverbs. Burckhardt, the famous German Orientalist, took them up when he came to Egypt in the early part of this century and translated them into German. Our era is familiar with proverbs. As for contemporary proverbs, they were then translated into the English language, and this book was well-known.

Therefore, when I was working ten years ago on a book titled "Mura al-Ayyam fi Misr wa al-Sudan wa al-Sham" (The Mirror of Days in Egypt, Sudan, and the Levant), the aim of this book was to encompass all that needs to be known about these three countries in history, geography, morals, customs, traditions, and language, in addition to contemporary matters. Proverbs were among the things that needed to be known about the people, as they are a mirror reflecting their morals, customs, and traditions. Thus, I decided to include a collection of contemporary proverbs in this book.