1. They wronged you, my grandfather, though you were not wrongful
How long has your right remained usurped?

2. They raised false claims and strayed into error
That time dragged in sorrows for you

3. They counted his crimes against you and exonerated
Their domains from them, so you remained blamed

4. They said what they wished and what desire fancied
And upon you was whatever they decreed binding

5. What good does it do you for the historian to transmit
From them though they were adversaries to you?

6. They said you amassed wealth without
Being turnable about anything, and were not merciful

7. They said you do not ask about reform and you settled
In the bosom of corruption, resident

8. They said your promises you breach,
Your hopeful in them has not ceased deprived

9. Your lips smile yet your palm hunts what
Their tyranny has brought, and you are not generous

10. You unleashed your despotism’s self-willed hand
In the inhabitants, a hell of misery

11. You burdened their shoulders while your unfettered son
Slept, so the crops through him were devastated

12. And you pastured in the Husseini precinct, preventing
Other than you to govern the region

13. And you ruled close to forty years, and they were
Inauspicious days in the country, ill-omened

14. And you intentionally stood in the path of its protections
A time, for you hate organization

15. And to France in particular is enmity
For you, no breeze of affection did you show it

16. These are your virtues which you left
To your sons, a pained, afflicted heart

17. Fifty years have passed with the truth in
Absence, its identity not known

18. Until the grandson assumed your role and came to them
Embodying your character, well-drawn

19. This is the time for equity and the equitable one in the
World, listen to the faint call within you

20. I will show you signs of His justice, a Ruler
Who makes events occur however He wished from old

21. Entrusted to His command is the time, and today He
Has fulfilled your right, so behold what is constructed

22. Blown upon you are winds of victory which I have watered
A crop in your enemies, devastated

23. My arguments to you are subtle, needing
Contemplation - the discerning amplifies them as stars

24. You used to be alone at night, knowing
Since you were amid the men, leader

25. With fortitude you battled your country’s afflictions
Resigned to His decree, acquiescent

26. You used to be among them as time is well-mannered
You walk surely, you do not see confusion

27. And all testify in politics that you are the
Most knowledgeable man in it, counted great

28. If you had betrayed them, you’d have sold their lands
Since you held power over it in your hand

29. You entrusted in Paris to do as you pleased
Who tomorrow became subservient to its envoy

30. Your possession was not for luck distributed
But the treasury of the state, accumulated

31. You prepared it for eventualities, a reserve
And were content that you were, with harm, marked

32. How many times did you cleverly maneuver in politics
Among the consuls who knew you as wise

33. You sold the jewelry, preparing when necessary
Rustam’s army, which he led, brought

34. The enemy testified you were the pillar in the
Last third, by its right you stand

35. If he had not said it, I swear by God to
That standing - for you belong the darkness and stars

36. The enemy testified you were good-natured and gentle
And excellent in manners he found you

37. The enemy testified to your chastity, negating from you
Sins though you were not infallible

38. Your logic did not know vileness, nor did
Your mouth know cordiality, nor did you take a cup-companion

39. When the innovations inclined, those great philosophers
Before you inclined, who believe in astrology

40. What appeared from you was its opposite,
For your view in matters remained sound

41. You were staunch in belief, truly
If it was a sin, then let it remain blamed

42. The enemy testified to the strength of faith in
That heart, and it contained a core

43. If those domes did not stand as witness
To you, then the known would be doubted

44. They indicated sincerity in his acts
For the righteous, erecting them reverently

45. How much has he endowed its sheikhs with his prayers
And the grace from him was not absent

46. Who believes in God loves Him
So ignore their hypocrisy - they see him an enemy

47. It has been said the day of dismissal in Ramadan
Resembled your being stoned in your shackling

48. What was greatest of them? How can an elder who overflowed
From the Book with knowledge approve it?

49. It was written, so it was in the page of his life
A clear, evident, known error

50. If faith was not scorned, its sayer would not
Be counted a sinner, unchaste

51. But when their faces appear to you
Reciting on both sides a mark of infamy

52. Oh time, betrayal on a day of your glory
They cannot assess even if they found a learned one

53. The consuls offered their protection, supporting
The truth, but they saw you forbearing

54. You said the country is his country and the money innocence
And you remained upon loyalty, concealing

55. If you had unleashed the disturbances then
You’d have made your master the prince your servant

56. And there reached you from Bismarck his letter
Borne by one of the elite, sufficient in its veneration

57. Asking in exchange for that, Bizerte
To cede it, and you were compassionate

58. So you answered him to leave the right to it, not ours in it
So he returned deprived, both of you

59. Knowing you are in innocence residing
And rizq was by His command apportioned

60. You intend to devote yourself purely to worship, for
They are gone and you cannot revive the non-existent

61. They demolished your edifice with picks in
Politics, so those bastions became mere traces

62. Oh grandfather, you were the talisman to your secret treasure
So after you its sealed door was opened

63. Your innocence was prior to my innocence
They nullified, though its script was transcribed

64. But it returned to you correct,
No blemish between its lines, pure

65. Oh people, my father’s sin is your independence
When your region for him was subjugated

66. He safeguarded your country’s existence
Sacrificing his life, unjustly wronged

67. Hoping the country would remain for its people
Forever, repelling from it the troops’ onslaughts

68. But fate refuses and the destined is occurring
Until they poured upon him poisons of defense

69. When he was about to attain his purpose, if not for fate
Casting down his sword among them, broken

70. The amir and his family regretted when regret
Profiteth naught, especially his dismissal, and generally

71. He attended the funeral the day of his burial, saying
I have restored my ministry, rebuilt

72. Tears flow but their wailing will not benefit
And the stabbing of conscience became painful to him

73. And so Khair al-Din became regretful
For he was not of unburdened conscience, ignoble

74. Ibn Ayad conveyed the regret of his in-law
This, and he addressed him with it, rebuking

75. Since he said: “The greatest mistake which engulfed
Affliction, specifically his dismissal, and generally

76. A recognition from those who wronged him, a witness of his right
Say: So let him be decisively right

77. These are the arguments I have presented
I have completed dictating them, appended

78. They were like the sun beneath a cloud
So I uncovered them in poetry, clouds dispersed

79. I have preserved the case for him, so I rose to advocate it
At the highest building, buttressed, supported

80. And I left to prose my ode to him
A composition which correctness encircles, orbits

81. This is the devout, the vigilant one by night
Who magnifies his Lord, revering

82. This is the devout one, wrongfully oppressed between man
Whom by their oppression they have defamed

83. None but he was known for worship
When this Saqsi was abstemious

84. He never sanctified the crucifixes a single day among them
Nor embraced or kissed them

85. They carried him as a child captive in years
Five - so let their breasts be narrowed

86. He came to Tunis, so Smiha chose him
And he saw majesty enveloping him, honoring him

87. Umm al-Mushir sees him alone, her solace
And he saw care and precedence from him

88. He continued rising in ranks
Until he married his sister Kalthoum

89. He never left the Husseini house a moment
Out of love and respect for the dwellers of graves, caring for them

90. From them and among them was his status
All revere his concealed hand

91. He filled his chest with medals of honor for him
Which ennobled him, placed atop him

92. Remaining though the era passed, as ruins
The historian Perim dwelled confused, wallowing

93. In shadows, and obscured him, defamed him
His sullied conscience, which did not know honesty and prohibition, dictated to him

94. He mentioned the opposite to delude the reader that
He is truthful - the liar of little shame lied

95. Allah made him utter them, so the pen of truth flowed with them
Clear, comprehensible

96. He attacked my grandfather, so the Lord of Justice heated for him
A punishment, incumbent, inescapable

97. I stripped him, despite his death, as a criminal
I punished him and his nation, enflamed

98. My grandfather used to banish the likes of him
After Sulaymi if he saw the insane

99. I presented his lines to him, so the prophet
Of poetry recited about him his metered verse

100. “If you are dispraised by a deficient one
Then it is testimony for me, and I am not worthless”

101. Mentioning them is a lesson by which afterwards
Whatever is bent in thought is straightened

102. For the historian Faisal’s word was not conclusive
Giving to himself alone the judgment

103. How many a right has been lost with its traces
Vanishing, passed between them, prohibited

104. Strange are the people who studied history but did not
Perceive what was certainly plucked from you

105. The secret of politics is not divulged in its time
And therefore the grandfather in it was silent

106. Until time uncovered its veil
Escaping the unknown, no longer imagined