1. Islam lost its ideal example,
And its sun of glory set.

2. Alas for the calamities that befell it!
Before it lions roared on mountain peaks.

3. Great misfortunes visited it until every speck in it
Was upset, and meteors of glory grew dim.

4. Black hair turned white like days,
And white faces went black like nights.

5. The eloquent tongue of sacred law was struck dumb
After being bold in speech.

6. The sky of religion—after reaching its full moon—
Began to suffer loss.

7. The judges—weeping over those misfortunes—
Neglected their duties.

8. Men of knowledge and understanding suffered,
While ignorance grew rife.

9. The refuge and excellent supporter of scholars died—
What an excellent supporter!

10. He who left fragrant traces behind him
After generosity and celebrations.

11. His death caused the eyelids of the great to ache
And folded up outspread carpets.

12. O Father of Excellence, your excellence refused
To abandon the afflicted in their worst state.

13. After you, son of Murtada, those who hope
Will never again suffer camel-litter galling.

14. The shabby-robed from lack of knowledge
Became, after you, cloaks fit for wearing.

15. Through your death, robes of honor remained
A gilded crown of knowledge’s splendor.

16. Your house was clothed in mourning while
Joy used to visit it in beauty's robes.

17. How many a white hand you bestowed gifts on
With a right hand and a left!

18. You were the sea of generosity if a request was made;
You were the ocean of knowledge for every question.

19. How you brought the half-dead jurist back to life
After an invigorating disputation!

20. So, if the completion of religion died
After a dominion and power that went on and on,

21. He left behind him a memory sweeter than musk
Whose fragrance the north wind carried far and wide.

22. O you who rejoices in death, just wait,
For death's cup comes round to all in the end.

23. No army so vast it fills earth and sky
Can save a tyrant from death's embrace.

24. By God, if valor could have kept death from him,
Swords red with gore would go back in their sheaths,

25. Lions of battle would crouch beneath him,
With steeds like towering mountains beneath them.

26. They see no glory but what a firm resolve
Builds with hands that climb the heights.

27. Into battle's surging they plunged, men who
Drank death like cool limpid water.

28. Souls yearning and lions angry,
Maids cloistered in their chambers,

29. Gave their lives for him—cousins, men of his time,
Slaves, clients, every loyal ally.

30. He showed to those who came after what transmitters
Related in books of old.

31. What a life! How many excellent qualities
It knotted above high hopes!

32. Before him we saw no one whose writing
Gleamed white within jet black.

33. He was peerless as a writer,
And Ali son of Hilal a crescent moon.

34. A versatile composer, when moved
He would aim at pretentious pedants and expose their failings.

35. He calmed the raging sea with words
As effective as potent spells.

36. Unruffled when passion seethed around him
In the assembly and men's livers burned,

37. Tranquil in a state for which
Every snarling cur yearned on high.

38. O gleam of faith, patience!—all that lives
Will perish except my Lord, eternal, unchanged.

39. Where are Tasm and Jadis and those ancients
Who peopled earth with wealth and children?

40. The prophets and their followers—
All of them came to this same state.

41. Be as Kamal al-Din was in his patience
When disaster weighed heavily.

42. Steadfast in good and evil alike
With the unstable when events changed,

43. In his grave he hid away such excellent traits and virtues
As thick as the sands of the waste.

44. God's mercy upon him! Whenever
A mother of little ones cried out in alarm,

45. The days are traitors; they have not ceased
To promise, after weaning, parting.

46. Blaming, they burn us every time
In prohibited and in lawful acts.

47. O gleam of faith! Yours is a house
Where the price of poetry stays high.

48. If anyone claims your like in your time
He has erred and speaks falsehood.

49. How you revived many a fallen house,
And with prohibition blocked the ways of error!

50. For the Alids of Sharazur a place
Below which stars range in far spheres.

51. Ready for every question, eloquent in every statement,
Persian in Mumbai, Indian in speech,

52. From them came every critic of taste,
Every erudite jurist skilled in debate;

53. Their pens attained what the heroes attained
With spears on the day of trial.

54. If their envier rejoices,
After them he'll be shot down with arrows.

55. Always, in every season, their graves are watered
By a mourner in the corner of the tomb.