1. Is it we who die, or is it others?
Are we doubting? How strange we are!

2. We see some of us have death take some of us,
While we sleep, not startled or awake.

3. These days are but stages,
Leading to death, so the nearest attains the furthest.

4. The youth among us loves survival, not knowing
That what he desires of survival, survival destroys him.

5. Days delude us, calling others in our place,
While we, in what we call, are the first of us to perish.

6. Behold, they are deaf, accepting no reason,
Afflicting joy, familiarity and bliss with sorrow.

7. The spiritual master Muhammad has died,
So people are now like nonsense without meaning.

8. But for those absent from that sect—and when
He was absent, their hearts filled up with grief.

9. So let him who will, after this day, live or die,
For there is no life that accepts, or death we desire.

10. The belly of the earth used to envy its surface for him.
Now the surface envies the belly.

11. Incline, incline the faces of determination and travel
To the Bountiful, and draw down the rainfall!

12. Loosen the floodgates of tears and pour them abundantly
Until sadness spills the eyelids.

13. In the morning, I fulfilled the truth by weeping for you,
Biting my palm or knocking out my teeth.

14. You were only glory for one who little glory possesses,
Only beauty for one who could not find a refuge.

15. No land but your land was deprived of your absence.
Rather it encompassed all lands, none were excluded.

16. My hopes had in your plains a spring to drink from
And fertile pasture—its fruit you never ceased to reap.

17. The death announcer announced your death to me,
Not knowing his loss.

18. The world has been folded up and made a prison!
Had the excess of weeping revived you,

19. We would have shed blood, tears and eyelids.
But the soul of no living being dies with his Lord.

20. He moves from one generous meaning to another.
Nor has one died whom life made eternal again

21. By his sublime legacy and beautiful deeds.
My friend, is there a way to meet you in a dream?

22. For nothing is sweeter than meeting with you or more blissful!
Peace upon that Living One, and God’s mercy

23. Envelop that most splendid vision!
Perhaps one day my brother will return my greeting.

24. He is but acting, so lend an ear!
Does it delude you that the dust bars him

25. When beneath the soil he is present with us?
I was gladdened by speech of his I heard

26. Just before we parted. My fear of him changed to safety,
In the presence of the spiritual pole, son of Muhammad,

27. Abu Bakr, known for his superiority. How unequalled!
A spiritual state seized him while he was with us,

28. Baring for him something, veiling him from us.
He said, “Listen! I have been told

29. To give you news of Ahmad though he is absent from you.”
He gave me the glad tidings of preservation, living and dead.

30. I said, “Bear witness!” He said, “Bear witness that he is of us!”
It suffices me, the good news you clothed me in,

31. Of blessings. I said, “God’s pleasure and safety are enough for me!”
And you placed in my right palm a rosary,

32. Hinting with it that it had become an obligation.
Those palms—I ransom them!—had touched it,

33. Noble palms! How beautiful their generosity was to me!
Hands of generosity, of masters and nobility! They are

34. The healing of the sick and exhausted, the dripping honeycomb.
We see plainly the glad tidings of comfort from the fingers,

35. And the right hand seeks blessings from the right hand.
So here I am, by God and by your promise,

36. Fulfilling my thanks for your kindness.
And here I am, fulfilling the promise, and trusting

37. That in both abodes, I have won the Gardens.
Upon him, from God, abundant peace,