Wiktionary

if the mountain won't come to Muhammad

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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An ellipsis (anapodoton) of the apocryphal phrase "if the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain," coined in a story by Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

Details

The earliest appearance of the phrase is from Chapter 12 of the Essays of Francis Bacon, published in 1625:

Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers, for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.[1]

It was published in John Ray's 1670 book of English proverbs,[2][3] The more complete reading of the essay makes it clear that Sir Francis Bacon meant the example to be disparaging, as he refers to “…mountebanks for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body…" in the context of his discussion “of boldness”, or what might be described in modern, political terms as brazening out a scandal or failure.

Although the phrase is widely associated with Muhammad, the 6th-century prophet of Islam who lived in Arabia, there is no written or oral tradition tracing it back to him. There is, however, a phrase in Turkish—dağ sana gelmezse, sen dağa gideceksin… (“if the mountain won't come to you, you must go to the mountain”)—that has no reference to Muhammad. (An alternative version can be found on the Turkish Wiktionary.) It is known as one of the atasözleri, or "common sayings", which exist in modern Turkish but are thought to have much older origins.

Proverb

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if the mountain won't come to Muhammad

  1. If something one wishes to be done cannot be commanded to be done, one must find another way to achieve one's goal.
    • 1988, Jeffrey Robinson, “The Birth of Opec and the Rise of Yamani”, in Yamani: The Inside Story‎[2] (Biography/History), New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, published 1989, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 54:
      It was obvious that, if Opec was going to survive much longer, it had to be taken seriously by the world’s major oil companies. So Yamani decided, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Opec had somehow to impose its presence on the oil companies.

Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Bacon, Francis (1625) chapter 12, in Essays‎[1]
  2. ^ Ray, John (1670) A collection of English proverbs digested into a convenient method for the speedy finding any one upon occasion: with short annotations: whereunto are added local proverbs with their explications, old proverbial rhythmes, less known or exotick proverbial sentences, and Scottish proverbs.
  3. ^ Gregory Y. Titelman (1996) Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, New York: Random House.

Further reading

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