1. Do your eyes sleep while eyes around you slumber?
Does your side rest while sides around you wander?

2. Rise to defend, for your people have no justice.
On a day of darkness, none can be hoped or expected.

3. After you, truth is mourning, shrouded by it.
Knowledge of sacred law and justice are grieving.

4. Justice travels unveiled, no light shows its path,
Nor any darkness overshadows its track.

5. When judges go astray, conjectures about them
Become guidance and counsel, rightly or wrongly.

6. At your death the keening of women was such
It nearly demolished their huts as they wailed.

7. When word reached nations, Mecca was shaken
And Baghdad was in chaos, distraught and bewildered

8. They carried your remains on biers bowed down
By the glory and splendor too great for their wood.

9. They swore a just covenant, its new leaves
Healing decay and making waste flourish anew.

10. But see, your huge armory lies dejected,
Your arsenal now a pit with cold ashes.

11. Who protects the innocent when oppressors attack,
Seeking victims, resolved to strike without hesitation?

12. When bullies roam the valley, once pasture for sheep
It becomes, under clouds, a desolate wasteland.

13. Who wards off floods when no dams can restrain them,
When no weapons or armies stand in their way?

14. Who defends our land when perils surround it,
And armies in panic scatter in disarray?

15. Protectors who flee leave no refuge secure,
No forts to be manned, no camps to be made.

16. Where are the brigades who alarmed our foes,
When conquest awaited and glory pervaded?

17. Who now has the souls the executioner severs,
Which Azrael releases for slaughter each day?

18. Traders sell them cheaply at dawn, and by dusk
The torturer has purchased them all, I would say.

19. These who call to God get no price for their work,
Their trade prospers only through pleas and through bribes.

20. Are these captured spoils or an oppressed people?
Are these foreign goods or our plundered tribes?

21. The flaw of a nation led by those who are tempted
To rule by their whims, by the fancies that swayed.

22. Consider the outcome when leaders play games —
No people so ruled shall have comfort or aid.

23. Ask the nobles: are they content without
The integrity shown by their virtuous kin?

24. Freedom of law startled and scattered its flock,
Oppressed its own partisans, made justice decline.

25. No voice dares to speak for the rights of our land
But is silenced by tyrants obsessed with their pride.

26. The Sudan's to them but vain words without meaning,
Though minds melt like wax when that name is cried.

27. They took fine words and adorned them, but to them
What is said is done, not to be reused.

28. The Nile is a resource shared by us together,
No excess or injustice was asked or excused.

29. Though we are the weak, did the mighty show care,
Bowing to the truth that our feeble voice carried?

30. They own all the riches of life, their justice
Alone stays their hand from the fate of `Aad's ruins.

31. Let no fool think their feast is open to all.
No deadline awaits their oasis of ease.

32. Are those their advisors? Does one seeking guidance
Find in Egypt an ear that is open and pure?

33. Where is Ahmad when perils surround us,
To dispel the clouds, whom sharp swords cannot endure?

34. To whom but his people did the hero bring glory,
If they call, where are kin to rush forth with their aid?

35. Though elders stood between you, intrigues undermined,
They spun webs to entrap men of honor, undone.

36. Their treaties were ropes made of malice and lies,
Their cords were of hates and of burdens unfair.

37. No balm exists for the deep wounds they gave
Except the martyr's shroud to cover his cares.

38. The deceiver spoke truly: Ahmad was not helped
By his comrades who stole all the thrones for their lair.

39. But for his defiance he too would have been
Hunted down like a lion pursued in its layer.

40. Have you seen when swords flashes and scabbards sway
As warriors close in and blood debt is to be paid?

41. Have you seen justice pour forth till the violent yield,
And regret their rash deeds and wild disarray?

42. He who planted courage was felled before harvest.
When goodness sprouts here, soon sickles appear.

43. Say to elders: sheathe swords, prepare yourselves now,
True men are arming, and conflict is near.

44. You shunned battle while archers stood ready.
The warriors advanced, though you cowered in fear.

45. The Nile watches for where its leaders have gone.
Did you shield it or flee, or were you unclear?

46. Now it seems you defended it not, your alleged
Stout blows and stabs were but empty and vain.

47. When the trusted took power, and then were deposed,
The lion's den crumbled; its cubs wandered, distressed.

48. The Nile Valley was ravaged, its serenity gone,
Usurpers exulting, their dominance plain.

49. While prisoners languish in chains and in woe,
Their chains and their shackles protest and complain.

50. Is this calamity final, or can our nation
Regain its lost way, have its honor again?