...Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, sv 40 My translation. The proverb is cited in Martin Hinds and El-Said Badawi, A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic,...Arabic-English (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1986), sv asil. 41 Hassän wa-Hadiyya, 1/3:15-16. Cf. Hinds and Badawi, A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic, sv...

...is a euphemism. In modern Egypt it is still a coarse word for passive homosexual; see Martin Hinds and El-Said Badawi, A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic:...Arabic-English (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1986), 593. It is possible that 'pigeon', too, is a euphemism here (it may mean 'penis', as readers of Nefzawi's...