1. Send your greetings among the people, Muhammad,
Their sins have grown great and the guide has become dear.

2. They have returned as if you had never been the light of guidance
For all the worlds, and your time had not yet come.

3. And they have taken on again the spirit of the Age of Ignorance
In every land it grows wanton and roams at large.

4. Part of the ignorance of their age is their ignorance
And their unbelief part of the make-up of the obstinate.

5. They denied the majesty of al-Nasiri, and that he
Is one of God's blessings which cannot be denied.

6. And they penetrated so far into error that they quaked
At what you have promised and at what you intend.

7. They set up, out of their blind reason, lamps
And made it a lord to be rewarded and worshipped.

8. So they themselves are temples of apostasy,
Raving, exporting misery and importing it.

9. Al-Lat - what they reckoned! And Uzza - what they desired!
God is greatest! Where is your sword that reaps?

10. God - from the night that He singled out by His perception
And stopped time in its tracks and turned the stars upside down,

11. The sky drew near as if the secret of its existence
Was on earth, intent on revealing itself and lying in wait.

12. And the lights called out - unimagined things -
The purest and most ardent, beyond all price.

13. And things asked about the wonder that was in them
And awoke and their frozen perception melted.

14. And there crept a tingling so there was nothing left
But ecstasy, submerging itself in glory and praise.

15. The laws of nature were overcome and violated,
Obedient to the Awesome One - they rise and sit at His command!

16. What astonishment! And this His night!
This travail, and this birth!

17. And the babe - a handful in the dust endowed
With clairvoyance, and an eye surveying the horizon.

18. And the universe acclaims the new-born child, blossoms,
And is refreshed in its veins because of Him, and extols Him.

19. O you who are sent as nothing but love
And an expression of never-ending love,

20. This book and everything called a saying in it
Is about you - and that inimitable eloquence!

21. If someone recites it and intones a verse from it
Would he have done so, were it not for you?

22. Or chants it melodiously and with emotion -
If I am excessive in my yearning after you, reprove me!

23. You are not my religion, nor am I an unbeliever.
You grasped the essence of unity, so became transcendent;

24. You described, and its mystery shone forth, burning bright.
And you instilled it in men, a gift of the Creator

25. To guide them, strengthen them, and make them immortal.
And in its name the tribes of one community came together,

26. Embracing you, committed to you.
They existed - did they exist? - then you came and they became

27. A blast that made the age quake and thunder!
And if they had heard your call in its entirety

28. They would have been startled out of their wits and transfixed!
They would have united every inhabitant of the desert

29. As brothers in God, and brothers in piety.
They would have united - mankind has one innate character -

30. And I, though a Christian, bear witness to this.
They would have set forth until no code remained

31. But you as its aid and refuge.
And you would have established their state with infinite scope

32. On earth - however constricted, you would have expanded it!
It is a state whose system is your love of heaven

33. Where the weak are safe and the masters humble.
It has a law by which people are not domineering

34. Or lorded over, and slaves are free.
And love awakens the relationships between them

35. With no sword, sharp and ready to slay.
Now we remember, while ordeal camps

36. At the fence of the Noble Sanctuary, raging and threatening destruction,
And venom surges in the dust, poisoning it,

37. So the sap of fertility in it dries up and freezes.
And the land is the prey of robbers who wish, if

38. Annihilation would gather it up and make it forgotten tomorrow!
And death slashes lives with curved swords

39. And humiliates men's hopes and extinguishes them.
My anxiety - and what is my anxiety? Those hordes of them

40. Are dead among the living - if only they were shrouded!
They were strewn about by the swords and those who escaped

41. Were mangled by the fangs of misery and scattered.
They cry out to the pitiless universe

42. With hands bloodied by atrocity and minds locked shut.
In misery over there and in sorrow over here

43. It's all one - neither the name of Christ nor Ahmad saves them.
O you who are sent, bird of Canopus, be our champion

44. For the good - your majesty was almost eclipsed!
Where are those rocks whose torrents

45. Rained destruction on those they struck, laying them low?
Send them - for those not guided by the Most High Light-

46. Mouthfuls pouring down on them like frigid stone!
Send your greetings among the people, Muhammad,