1. O Abul Ala, will you not relate to us news
While you are in a world of unknown mysteries?

2. What did you say in the grave when the angels came - did
You convince them with tales and poems?

3. Or was that your imagination in life, and how
Your powerful imagination perplexed us!

4. You did not fear anyone in your world -
Why did you not rebel in the next against the Creator

5. And come to us despite the unwillingness of death, relating
A journey of yours in Heaven and Hell,

6. In which there are facts - not fabricated tales -
Nor an articulate narrator’s embellishments, nor a sorcerer’s determinations?

7. It is said messengers do not lie to their people -
So no worshippers or sinners have erred.

8. We are confused about the matter of your world
While we are in a world originally made of clay.

9. O Abul Ala, and you today belong
To a pure world free of the schemes of evildoers.

10. What would you have done had you witnessed our world
And people as sheep for the butcher’s war?

11. Would you buy newspapers announcing
The killing of thousands and the destruction of cities?

12. Or would you have invoked upon all people what
Noah persistently implored God with?

13. Or would you have stayed as usual, aloof
From other people in a corner of the house?

14. No doubt to you living in the wilderness is better than
Living in countries where man is like a predator.

15. For beasts are more merciful in this age than people -
They are the beasts wearing the guise of the righteous.

16. O Abul Ala, and we today live in an age
In which truth has not won supporters.

17. You claimed you were captive yet
You were free - you did not submit to the tide.

18. You defended, disgusted, the comfort stolen
With no right, bought for a quarter dinar.

19. So who will defend a soul led
To death without a crime that is avenged?

20. If you had set free a flea you caught
And it grew accustomed to harming your naked body,

21. For us mercy is weakness, and our goal
Is to kill the stubborn or enslave the free.

22. And our knowledge today - if you knew its virtues -
Would have spread all over the world, but with harms.

23. It has excelled in reaping souls, in
Demolishing homes, and subjugating countries.

24. And our neighbor has invented things that destroy civilizations
With steel and fire.

25. Ignorance is better than knowledge whose consequences
Are bloodshed and a neighbor's oppression of his neighbor.

26. O Abul Ala, contemplate the state of our world
And remember your time - do not be unjust in pride.

27. Azrael in our age has prospered in his trade
For each inventor is an Azrael of lifetimes.

28. And after this we claim to be human
And that there are working consciences inside us.

29. The mind grew in man and its effects were reflected -
It brought evil and shame.

30. So let us regress or let us be human,
Seeking good as long as we possess the abode.