1. To you the frightened fugitive flees
And in your hands lies the gallant knight's safety

2. The horizons converged towards you
And the myriad paths and roads led to your right

3. The kings of earth came to consult you
To you came the rescue of cavalry and camel

4. Both sea and land attend you busily
While east and west beseech you beseechingly

5. The stars of good fortune rise to assist you
So be joyful—you have attained your heart’s desires

6. And countries’ rulers all submit to you
Masters of empire, time and dynasties alike

7. Your prowess prevailed when you clashed with them
Made obedient by fate, creeds and faiths

8. Some spatter of glory comes back to you
Protecting them from the sword of woe and ruin

9. An army filling the flat land and hill country
Led by good fortune comes toward you

10. Seeking a life whereof the greatest quest
Exceeds letters or pleading emissaries

11. Wielding the sword of victory whene’er
A creed denied obedience in word or deed

12. The battalions were emptied by force, as the deer fled
From loved ones and partisans busily

13. With petitioning hands, seeking your pardon
A petitioner hoping for clemency

14. In a throng whose spirits cowardice had filled—
Smooth roads for them to meet you humbly

15. Enforcing your rule as though captives and booty
Welcoming whatever hope you brought to life

16. Submitting to whatever doom you ordained
They plunged into seas of death, turbulent

17. With waves of shafts foaming like shadows
And earth in the battle plain became mires

18. Over them India’s ivory and pearls flowed
The lions with flashing eyes in the frenzy

19. Of shafts like your piercing white blades burned
Their braids hung down in strands as though clothed

20. In Raqraq’s fabric of apricot and peach
The warships wallowed between masts and rigging

21. Like camels lurching among bracelets and anklets
And wing-flapping birds like the sand grouse fluttered

22. Shuddering in panic and sudden dread
Steady in stillness, sensing confusion in the crazed

23. Till your upper hand prevailed, and he was rent
His entrails between the hands of the raiders

24. When your stride moved in dread, it pronounced
Control on him—he rose up, newly hopeful

25. He met the sea and horizons surrounding him
From winds, facing the sun at zenith

26. Met glory and reverence in a dominion
With auspicious, greeting, auspicious future

27. Crowned with the kingdom’s brilliance, vanquisher
Embraced in the cloak of honor, wrapped

28. United with bounty, blessing with praise
Outstripping in precedence, joined by forbearance

29. God granted you a day from all other days
Where you alone were peerless among equals

30. After the blows of fate had warned the man
Whom in olden days your sword had wanted

31. And how much he grieved for them in pacts
Turned now to sorrow and confusion

32. And tears washed his heavy eyelids
Flooding their every encampment with darkness

33. So may the highest honors be yours, too lofty
For Jupiter’s or Saturn’s towering heights!

34. Make peace—may the glory of your kingdom endure
For Arabs and their sons as long as it has endured

35. In humble circumstance and unbroken rule
In lasting might, secure and unremoved!