1. A decree has passed, a judgement we cannot overcome
The sanctuary is too confining for its pilgrim throngs

2. An affliction that tested the patience of the steadfast
And patience had always praiseworthy consequences

3. A misfortune that caused pain and a crack not to be patched
It befell us while its course had already been set

4. The pinnacle of the caliphate, the sun set in its chamber
So the horizon grew dark and its flanks turned black

5. The hand of fate blinded its vision
From a precious pearl on which it set its claws

6. Fate is twisted in its rulings, crooked
If it had any sense, we would reproach it

7. It made desolate a land whose dwellers are gone
To which loved ones, now absent, would return

8. A land that wrings hearts and makes weep all who pass it
A land where loved ones once frolicked and played

9. I turn my eyes and thoughts to its glories
While tears rain from my eyelids in torrents

10. My mind depicts a phantom of its figure
Till I fancy myself addressing and speaking to it

11. Alas! The state of degradation, without seeing it
Can one who lies in the grave perceive anything?

12. I knew it as it lay wrapped in its winding cloth
While names were called by those who make no replies

13. Borne along while the kings of earth walked on foot
In legions- the battalions of the world filled its streets

14. The heavens barely contained those who mourned it
Man weeping over comrades and neighbors

15. And sorrow flowed on, wave after wave
Eyes raining tears, torrents streaming from their clouds

16. One wails aloud, another sheds tears down his cheeks
Another still tastes the bitterness of grief

17. But patience in the fray of woes is muddied
Walking on while resolve rises to meet it

18. There I witnessed what had rent my heart
So that grief made grey the tresses of my heart

19. How can I show patience when beneath the soil lies my heart
Buried, and a beloved whose side none shared?

20. Dust heaped upon it by one who wished it rest
The earth grew eyes and eyebrows in compassion

21. Where can I find a bosom to confide my lament?
Who by lamenting would lament with me?

22. I weep and he weeps, he tells me and I hear him
And we pass our lives in union we have plundered

23. Oh how my soul yearns for the absent one I lost
Who took my lovely patience, and exhausted my hopes

24. Give me the open wastes, for whoever desires may die
No life remains after it with waters sweet to taste

25. I commend to God one whom a tomb now hides
One whose virtues cannot be counted or summed