1. Reconcile with your brothers and fulfill your promises,
And allow our hearts some respite from sorrow.

2. Gently, O sons of our father,
Do you only give them bitter water to drink?

3. By the life of the two rivers, we have lingered
Sick with yearning, for years and years,

4. Guarding the riverbanks while losing ourselves,
No longer visiting its springs or collecting its water.

5. Gently, O my people! We have found
That our people’s abandonment is an incurable disease.

6. When we seek justice, we want no recourse
Except an appeal to generosity.

7. We knew you in your youth to have lineage
And to be honorable brothers.

8. So visit our land or make it a refuge,
Even if Iraq grows angry at you.

9. How could it be angry that a brother loves his brother?
Is it possible that their reunion could be prevented?

10. We found that departure saddens us,
Even if ardent love destroys us, it is forbidden.

11. Our hearts cannot leave it—
They are like birds fluttering then swooping.

12. Their flocks have flown off, stirring the winds.
They passed through the waters, clouds trailing them,

13. Until over the two rivers they were seized
By yearning and tumbled down in pieces.

14. Protectors of the two rivers, if only we could
Make the two streams into a greeting for you.

15. A greeting from the shining rays of poetry
Whose threads interweave harmoniously,

16. Its brightness covering the earth endlessly
Revealing its depths and dispelling the darkness.

17. You have arrived in a procession of eras
Whose majesty has been restored to greatness,

18. Eras that came to us and you
Speaking of our ancient kinship,

19. Stripping tongues from their mouths
And sending speech from their eyes.

20. We remembered them and a breeze stirred them
Though they were only dust.

21. Arabism magnified when it saw us
Rising from their resting places to stand tall.

22. I see them raising their necks proudly
Behind the crowd, like pillars.

23. They have gone blind, O dear sons!
For you have a power that cannot be subdued.

24. We have restored the East to its ways
And continued to set its affairs right,

25. The times have inspired us and awakened us
With clashes that rouse sleeping nations.

26. We fight off the beasts who hunt us hungry
And refuse to become their food.

27. If we did not defend against them, they would destroy
The last of us, seizing and consuming.

28. I see them crowded around us,
Surging like sea waves in great throngs.

29. Begone from here and seek weaker prey,
For our flesh has become poison.

30. When will you disobey counsel and feed them
As is your custom, feeding them lethal poison?

31. The Arab people refuse to be humiliated,
Submitting to the impossible, never to be bent.

32. If they are raided continuously,
They do not weaken or refrain from clashing.

33. Marching on in jihad, O sons of our father,
Clinging to Arabism and banding together,

34. When you descend upon the Tigris and Euphrates,
Greet the valiant nation within them.

35. And when the storms have passed, remember us
And say: A nation that tends to its promises.