1. Your smiling mouth feigned for me a lightning flash that beamed,
And nearly snatched away both my glances and heart together.

2. Is your slender shape a gently swaying branch of acacia
On a sandy hillock where the full moon has just arisen?

3. You were so miserly that you grudged me even a phantom of you to visit me.
Does a phantom visit a glance that has rarely slept?

4. O heart that is filled with passion, do not listen to any censure
About her whom falsehood was never heard to repeat.

5. It listened to the slanderer’s lies and believed him.
Oh, wretched is what the slanderer did and how he gained nothing!

6. Indeed I wonder at a heart that loves you, O Salma,
Roaming distraught though you have cut it to pieces.

7. The tongues of slanderers have crept into my good opinion of you
To defame me with the ugliness of disgrace, and so have been cut off.

8. And nothing has healed my liver from what I suffer
Except the good tidings when the full moon of the faith arose.

9. So he made the intimacy clear in a way that brilliant,
Articulated lines followed, gleaming in its diffusion.

10. Son of Mubārak, his being blessed
In time has never ceased, whether he traveled or settled down.

11. No natural inclination ever led him one day into greed,
And he never pastured the people, unless he felt religious scruples.

12. Wadūd, you have never ceased being endowed with glorious qualities among men.
You did not aspire to high office, bearing its burdens.

13. So every fine point of character, which people
Exhibit, has been united and focused in you.

14. Kings see that whatever they possess in power,
Apart from your destiny, O you whose worth is sublime,

15. They said, “Does the earth rain down the sky?” So be content,
O soul, with what you are given and be satisfied.

16. Build mosques assiduously, as you are guaranteed
By your efforts to demolish churches through the One with no partners.

17. You assume authority, but hands do not support you
Except those of your God, so thank Him for what He has wrought!

18. It suffices you that the son of Job saw
Righteousness in appointing you, so benefit from it!

19. Never has my prayer failed for the Commander, with Him
Who never disappoints one who appeals to Him.