1. When the arrow is deflected or it bends,
The arrow of death will not bend.

2. The firm one arises against the shooter,
And the destined one is silent even if he complains.

3. How often does the claim of "perhaps" deny hope!
The hoping one's duty is just to preach.

4. And he rejoices in his good companions,
Even if he remembered death, he would not be sleepy.

5. It is death, there is no escape from its arrow,
So how can we be shielded so it trickles down?

6. And how did we drag along the bow
While every side of it had arrows ready to shoot?

7. And death will take whoever,
Turned away on the road or paused.

8. A decree from God, no changing it
When it comes, it is secured from being changed.

9. Whoever fate made its target,
Salvation does not benefit him if it missed him.

10. So it drops him with a blow even if he did not fight,
And fells him with a stroke even if he is not complaining.

11. O you who gloat at the occurrence of adversity,
The bowl will bring you from the purest water.

12. Hardship made me worry,
So how can you be safe from worrying?

13. Time has cast me into estrangement
Where I keep company with hostile strangers.

14. The settler amongst them counted me one of them
And I swear I will not go back to the settlements.

15. My righteous son Abdul Ghani was
A gift from my Lord who granted him to me.

16. I forgot, through him, my paradise Al-Qayrawan
And lived comfortably with him in adversity.

17. When he grew like the crescent moon, upright,
And like crops, luxuriant, he became robust.

18. His eye was stricken and took him away
Though I had feared it would notice him.

19. His eye has shed bloody tears
And I was used to it dispelling worries.

20. Prayer of God and His pleasure
Upon a guardian who surpassed others in memorization.

21. Keen on remembrance, listening to it
When his peers fell asleep, he was alert.

22. Whoever saw him writing and reading
Would say: he did not err nor misspeak.

23. He had the forbearance of Ahnaf though he was only nine years old
And the saying of a firm man when resolute.

24. It is wondrous enough that the water of bashfulness
Would flush his face so I say "lower your gaze".

25. It would obligate him to lower his eyelids
And withdraw when anything alarmed him.

26. Hardship has wrapped you, O torch of guidance,
Distancing you today from my neighborhood.

27. As if God had not supported me through you
Nor elevated my glory nor guarded me.

28. Nor were you my refuge in my times,
Whenever its difficult days terrified me.

29. You show sympathy when the son of disobedience persecutes me,
And you show contentment with me when I memorize.

30. My sword, with which I often drove back
The afflicting sorrows, laments over you.

31. For the dogs of enmity have barked me away
And their scorpions have crept, stinging.

32. And in me is a burning pain, how do I escape it,
While the sweetness of your words has been silenced?

33. When the speech was crude, the refinement
Of your speech refused to be uttered.

34. You amazed tongues while still young,
And you have not erred since you surpassed peers.

35. You were hard on remembrance until it is said:
May God reward you with good - how he memorized!

36. Abdul Ghani, you granted excellent qualities,
How could that be when it is you who surpassed?

37. You left your father, captive of sorrows,
Suffering the loss of an intelligent beloved one.

38. So he does not know from the heat of himself,
Whether he roasted on embers or was cooked.

39. And he does not know, so he sheds his eyelids
With tears or himself melting away.

40. And these are his vehicles during his lifetime,
He harnessed them and they are obedient.

41. I protected you from the tribulations of time,
But death refused to be driven away.