1. What wrongs have they committed, oh pen
By Allah, you contain only sincerity and wisdom

2. It saddens me that they imprison you while they
Without you, their feet would not stand firm on earth

3. You were created free, like the waves of the sea bursting forth
What are shackles, bonds and muzzles to you?

4. If they imprison the singing bird in a cage
His voice and melody cannot be imprisoned

5. Oh Allah, time has dragged on for a nation
Time passes but their pain does not fade

6. As if its Creator singled it out for humiliation
Or time swore its flag would never rise

7. Wronged, though it did no wrong but
Seek rights that they do not recognize

8. Years have passed, all bringing woe
If only its times had been blessed

9. They called its grievances injustice, though it was not unjust
Rather they were unjust in what they claimed

10. It did not harm them that it spent nights questioning
Where are the covenants, where is the oath and promise?

11. Were their ears not full of deafness enough
That they wished to awaken deafness itself?

12. As if they wearied that its spirit still
Clung to time that did not manage to make it despair

13. So they bound it, hoping bindings would silence it
But the oppressed cannot be silenced, if only they knew

14. They burdened pages and pens in an age
Where idols and pens are almost worshipped

15. If they forbid pages, the anguish within us
Will inscribe each of us as pages in Egypt

16. We are a people with a glory we will recall
As long as we have speaking tongues and mouths

17. How can the path to regaining our loftiness be
When it is coveted by some nations?

18. Honor refuses that we accept humiliation in
An era where we saw slaves respected

19. Death is better than life full of bitterness
For life without freedom is naught