"What is ""mightier than the sword"" in the old saying?"
The pen is mightier than the sword caught them, they wrapped the children in their scrolls and lit them on fire. The Islamic prophet Muhammad is quoted, in a saying narrated by 'Abdullah ibn Amr: ""There will be a tribulation that will wipe out the Arabs in which those killed on both sides are in the Hellfire. In that time the spoken word will be stronger than the sword"".<ref> The pen is mightier than the sword "The pen is mightier than the sword" is a metonymic adage, coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, indicating that communication (particularly written language), or in some interpretations, administrative power
The pen is mightier than the sword and commonplace". The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, which opened in 1897, has the adage decorating an interior wall. Though Bulwer's phrasing was novel, the idea of communication surpassing violence in efficacy had numerous predecessors. The saying quickly gained currency, says Susan Ratcliffe, associate editor of the Oxford Quotations Dictionaries. "By the 1840s it was a commonplace." Assyrian sage Ahiqar, who reputedly lived during the early 7th century BC, coined the first known version of this phrase. One copy of the Teachings of Ahiqar, dating to about 500 BC, states, "The word is mightier than the sword."