1. In full view of the Highest Assembly and plain for all to behold
Where is eloquence to match it and where is the pulpit?

2. Gabriel proclaims and the Prophet, as is his custom,
Sees the faces amid the ranks and looks on.

3. The seven jurists in their chanting
Of the Remembrance, and the Assembly entirely assembled.

4. Lower your glances reverently or look
This is Ali in the Prophet and Ja'far.

5. God sent down an upright Scripture
Describing life for all who reflect.

6. It is His light and His path—none compares to it,
A light to be hoped for and no path preferred over it.

7. Whoever is misguided without an excuse—
Though people wander confused in the dark, they are excused.

8. A religion overflowing with guidance and a world entirely open
Like the fresh verdure of spring or more so.

9. The world of the Caesars or the world we knew
Whose vanguards have turned and the Caesars fled.

10. What is our business with the nations when it suffices
That we are blamed for our religion and reviled?

11. They rule by their falsehood while trampling our truth
Though we are more worthy to rule and more suited.

12. O people, do you know your Scripture
Or is there no believer among you who remembers?

13. Forgive me, but hardship has overwhelmed me
To think my brain is about to burst.

14. As if among my flesh, lungs, and ribs
Were a blazing fire raging and boiling.

15. If you are ignorant of it, it is the mystery
That gives life when souls die and are buried.

16. It is the expected refuge to protect us when
Matters proceed as we fear and dread.

17. What do we fear when each letter is a stronghold
And whom do we obey when each line is a troop?

18. It is the strength of Islam—no strength
Can be flung at it without being turned back and subdued.

19. We will surely help our Lord and elevate Him
And we are the worthiest to elevate and help.

20. The misguided ones thought ill thoughts of our people:
Can the blind see and the seeing go blind?

21. They claimed civilization would not flourish
Except by their beliefs—the truth is clear and evident.

22. Is this the civilization whose calamities
Have kept the world quaking and raging night and day?

23. They went into action—those are kingdoms made
To be flung into storms, or peoples slaughtered.

24. They hurl in the name of truth when truth is their adversary
Regarding the blood spilled and lives devastated.

25. Was any pillar of civilization erected
Without them sending to it a wrecker and destroyer?

26. They butchered peace, so from their victim's blood
In every land lurks an expanding conflagration.

27. War is a market and souls are goods—
What wretched merchants and what a wretched commerce!

28. Souls have rebelled. Unjust, heedless of his injustice,
Aggressive, never curtailing his aggressiveness.

29. We were conquerors who opened lands—
None of us was coercive or arrogant.

30. The chosen Scripture restrains us
And the purest, most righteous religion turns us back.

31. O you who defend the Quran against its foes!
You are the greatest help for your people.

32. This is the path of the believers—its reward belongs to you—
The warrior is rewarded and the fighter wages war.

33. Do we seek our Lord's mercy and His Book
To be distanced in time's bitterness and neglected?

34. You are God's party—your deeds are not equal:
A choosing, not equally chosen.

35. The Remembrance is protected by your righteous deeds.
Enduring upon this world, proclaimed and spread.

36. It sways souls away from desire and returns them
From objectionable matters, refusing and preventing them.

37. And it establishes the morality of its verses
Like an edifice for which facades collapse and tremble.

38. It gives each stance and position its due—
Now gentle, now warning.

39. God has honored you through it and loved you,
And God honors whom He loves and who give thanks.