Recollecting memories of a person or event related to a specific place has been a recurring theme in Arabic poetry from pre-Islamic times. An enlivening description (waṣf) of such a memorialized place serves as an interesting source for contemplating upon its intricate evocations and visual symbolisms that aim to immortalize precise historical figures or events, subsequently providing a two-layered narrative: of the actual place, and the manner in which it was beheld over the years by perceptive people. One can find a substantial amount of evidence for reconstructing the description of a particular memorial space from this kind of literary tribute. This paper endeavours to present a similar reconstruction of the dynamics between the text and the object, from a few verses of an Arabic poem composed by the Fatimid prince Tamīm (337 AH-374 AH/ 949-984 CE), the eldest son of the Fatimid Caliph al-Muʿizz—in his multisensory experience of the nāʿūrah (waterwheel), a common presence in Fatimid-era gardens, and the connotational representation by which he desires to behold its architectural beauty in the relaxing environment of a garden. The first verse of his poem states: ناعورة أنت أنين الهوى لما شكت حر وساويسها [The water wheel cried with the wail of passion; when it complained of the heat of its anxiety.] The analysis of al-Amīr Tamīm’s poem presented in this paper seeks to provide the beholder of art and architecture with a lens to look beyond the confines of its structural dimensions into a refreshing contemplation of its multitude of meanings. Although art historians have written much about the religious structures of Islam, non-religious structures like the nāʿūra, sometimes go blatantly unnoticed. Like the nāʿūra, al-Amīr Tamīm’s poems elucidate a number of stimulating descriptions of non-religious spaces, that not only widen the scope of our understanding of Islamic art, but also provide new insights into how a non-religious structure could also be observed through a unique universal perspective, which definitely exemplifies but is not limited to—the Islamic philosophy. In the realm of Fatimid art, this kind of universally appealing animation of tangible structures through literature—unpacks rather challenges the long-held notion of restricting its art to being means for religious propagandism, and inspires us to contemplate and rediscover the numerous inspirational manifestations that Islamic art and architecture has to offer.