1. When the lightning flashes lit the dark,
And the moonlight shone clearly through the night,

2. Your eyes kept burning in their sockets,
Heavily kohled, a doe-eyed gazelle.

3. When night embraced the dark in its arms,
It awoke at dawn dressed in jewelry.

4. Its banner carried a greeting to us,
Stirring up memories and overflowing passion.

5. To meet the rising constellations
There rose a full moon hanging in space.

6. When it declined setting in the west,
It spilled its light generously on the gardens.

7. It hung down, so I imagined the darkness
To be waves breaking gently on its banks,

8. That would make its valleys in the morning
Scented meadows moistened with rainwater,

9. You watered it, so your pure musk dripped
And the pearls of verse scattered everywhere,

10. Until no high elevated place remained
Nor low valley left among them.

11. By the bright flash of lightning in Thahmad
Those suns were eclipsed and began to set.

12. I solace myself with nothing but a cup
Of passion, or dreams that illuminate the dark.

13. From the essence of the caliphate shone one
Whose whiteness outshone the sun at dawn,

14. A torrent of generosity with impregnable virtue
Never once made fragile throughout his life,

15. Seeking them before being asked, voluntarily,
With kindness that makes the suppliant successful.

16. Those whom you knew to have this generosity triumphed,
While the misers of wealth gained nothing.

17. Leave Hatim and Kaʿb alone, for we
Saw him prefer religion over worldly things.

18. I will show you his caliphal path zigzagging,
Clarifying the standards of the caliphate.

19. His resolve repelled many enemies,
And turned aside the ferocious lions.

20. When God chose him and made the angels his troops
The heavens revolved around their axis for his foes.

21. He made you the pivot of all policy, well-guided,
Aiming straight or speaking most eloquently.

22. He guided them by means more effective than the sword,
And more beneficial than the pillars of peace.

23. Though his commanders counseled him, I saw
The caliph's foster son give the soundest advice.

24. The Commander of the Faithful saw you as before,
Like the sharp blade of a sword, striking and striking.

25. He dispatched you to the rebellious Qarun of the Maghrib
And its Pharaoh, recalcitrant and slaughtering,

26. Who had gathered troops and regiments around him
Until you overwhelmed him in the shade of his pavilion,

27. But when matters came to a head, you subdued his roar,
Murmuring indirect threats you had already declared openly.

28. You cut down his lofty delusions,
And death's mother was the one who cut him down.

29. You did not cast your eyes about waveringly,
Nor retreat until you returned completely defeated.

30. No one called him Arnana, nor did his tricks
Avail him in the place of weeping and lament.

31. He was abandoned among his followers when the news—
Which you had erased like a guiding sign—spread.

32. Forcefully you took the son of Wāsūl captive
And you wrenched away from him one worn out and frail.

33. By my life! If you reunite him with his beloved ones
He would be their best guide to the path of destruction.

34. How many nights of separation you ruined him,
Serving him the cup of death at dawn!

35. You tore down what obstinacy had built up
Though its pillars in that shaking were firmly fixed.

36. While from its balconies the horizon roared
And its banners, until they tumbled down flattened.

37. It had been an open gate, without any army,
But when your right hand approached and opened it,

38. Nights of wars like shooting stars
Whose flames were fanned and stoked,

39. The son of Abu Sufyan saw in them his right guidance
And he renounced corruption and put things right.

40. He called you to secure him, so you answered him,
Though had you not saved him with your wisdom he would have perished.

41. Against the family of Musa you launched campaigns
Stirring up for them those violent storms.

42. When they saw there was no escape for the fugitive
And death's mother bared her teeth at them,

43. While the flooding sea of death was passing
And the expanse of earth grew narrow as their theater,

44. You pardoned the guilty out of bounty and mercy,
Though it would have been your right to refuse and punish.

45. They intended, because of that sword, to depart,
So you gave their leaders the freedom of the open range.

46. The fortress builder was a towering mountain,
Yet you left him a desolate wilderness in Tayma.

47. Whatever the Destroyer had decreed came to pass;
You were never blamed in the evening or the morning.

48. Signs that no ruin could ever destroy
Or whose loss the doves might mourn cooing.

49. They were—and it was an Age of Ignorance—
Until God made clear the path and elucidated it.

50. Whoever purified himself of them succeeded,
Led by the trustee of the angels, purified and successful.

51. I swear by the courtyards of the Kaaba, a sanctuary,
And by the Black Stone and its circumambulator,

52. They would go back to witnessing miracles
If you but touched the pebbles with your palm, and they would glorify!