1. Where are the high aspirations?
Where is the lightning strike and unyielding resolve?

2. Why do I see ambitions that end in ruins,
As if their glory was bound in shackles?

3. Weakness ambushes them, unless a day
Of evil rouses each attacker.

4. Their traces in any good cause
Are like the destruction of lightning or an earthquake's devastation.

5. People vary - some loyal to their nation
While others demolish what it built in its prime.

6. Destroyers made destruction their delight
So you see in it nothing but ruins.

7. The ill of kingdoms is when their leadership
Goes to insignificant, ignorant people.

8. They are the warning - if their state befalls you
You'll suffer the most disliked of conditions.

9. Preachers spoke of Antichrist but did not know
We see every day a thousand Antichrists.

10. Good tidings to idols - people only gathered
Around an idol or a statue.

11. A faulty religion, a world gone wrong
And a nation busy with gossip and rumours.

12. It hands its reins to wicked leaders
And believes the lies of every scam artist.

13. Their hands in it, when given free rein
Are like the claws of demons or the jaws of beasts.

14. What a great leader - he left without regret
Buying every lowlife with precious blood.

15. He betrayed the victims - their screaming shook mankind
And jinn recoiled at their long wailing.

16. God did not make its carrion lawful
To every free soul of noble temperament.

17. Oh what evil the people drank of its blood
And what rotten bone marrow they tasted!