1. I am the one who exchanged companions for books,
I found no intimate friend but the book.

2. A companion, whether you tire of him or not,
If not found by a companion, is no blemish.

3. Whenever I cultivate it, it renews me,
And dresses me in robes of superiority's jewels.

4. A companionship I never doubted,
And affection that did not obligate me to blame.

5. Many a night we did not shorten in it
From conversation prolonged in silence and allurement.

6. My day's concerns were my comfort,
My regrets and transport and drink.

7. If it finds me conversing or finds
Weariness, it shortens the talks summarizing.

8. You find books, according to criticism, as
You find companions, truthfully and lying.

9. So choose it as you choose him,
And hoard the finest in companions and books.

10. A companion's righteousness wants you pious,
And a book's guidance wants you correct.

11. Give precedence to history and make its pages,
In venerating Scripture, a mantle.

12. Flip through the Bible and see guidance
Meet history in weight and reckoning.

13. Many traveled in journeys of
The ages' nights and days perplexed.

14. And seek eternity and make it a dwelling,
You will find eternity a door from history.

15. A people lived and passed who did not diminish
The earth's expanse or increase the soil.

16. History took from what they left
Good work or word that hit the mark.

17. From benevolence or its opposite
The desirous succeeded in mention or were deprived.

18. The example of a people forgot their history
Is a foundling confused among people in lineage.

19. Or like a defeated man in memory
Complaining of his past's connection being severed.

20. O Father of Historians, you have conveyed us
Students, may God convey you wishes.

21. For you in the Conquest and its events
God opened a new discourse and address.

22. Whoever peruses it and makes it a companion
Finds seriousness and is not devoid of jest.

23. Writings you authored in fervor
In which the mind melts away stealing.

24. The language of The Complete in prolixity
And Ibn Khaldoun when accurate and correct.

25. Verily for eloquence there is a rein and hand
That avoids ease and leads the difficult.

26. The era's talk is the tongue of the Chosen One
How can it answer the inviters?

27. Every age, if its abode met it,
A vast house, family, and space.

28. Bring it thriving vegetation
And invite it to flow with torment's springs.

29. Do not bring it accumulated goods
Stolen from every tribe aggressively seized.

30. Ask it of Andalusia, did it fall short
Of the supreme realm when it stayed?

31. It was planted in every foreign soil
So it thrived originally as its stakes were fragrant.

32. It walked its walk, it did not ride
Other than its feet or wear out shoes.

33. An age you stand to unveil it for us
Wore the days opaque darkness.

34. The Mamluks walked, their darkness
Darkness like the night’s veil.

35. All of them like camphor or Abdel Khanna
Except Al-Mutanabbi missed the mark from it.

36. And for each a followers of his ilk
Evil to evil is attracted for certain.

37. Darkness in whose wings you see
Nothing but this brilliant Azhar meteor.

38. Morals in it were made a wall
In which it took shelter a porch and domes.

39. And you see the isolates among its sheikhs
Made it with the weapon of truth inaccessible.

40. By God if not for him no man would remain in it
Reciting or knowing Scripture.

41. It preserved the faith completely and passed away
Rescuing the world though unable to remain.

42. Its prestige was harmed by its weakness
And the most an incapable can do is not be feared.

43. No pen was left at ease
By a state that knew nothing but war.

44. God seated Al-Jabarti for it
A pen beyond absent pens flowing.

45. The sheikh hid for it in his parchments
A stylus more piercing than dripping poison.

46. A king who did not overlook a misdeed
What a king to love insult.

47. Injustice does not see it on its shoulder
While it brands the shoulder of injustice.

48. The sheikh’s notebooks and diaries
Like the sheikh’s era—sickness and turmoil.

49. With margins like ice not melted
And sections resembling melted lead.

50. And Al-Jabarti despite his cleverness
Sometimes is oblivious and sometimes feigns.

51. A fair man unless influenced by passion
Or treats his soul’s passion biased.

52. And when the living are ruled by passion
The living’s biography desires corruption and bias.

53. The battle of the pyramids stood high
And rose among battles to soil.

54. The past’s lesson and its instruction’s meeting
For minds that make the past a beacon.

55. Of the ages’ daughters except she
Spreads out and folds the age like a turban.

56. And of days some remain though
The heroes deeply plunged into the age hiding.

57. From what path did you reach them
A peak of glory no seeker comes near?

58. Look to the East you find it shuffled
The East’s state straight and chaotic.

59. It brought good and evil and quenched
Nations in their cradle with nectar and fingertips.

60. In two inheritances we wore its beauty
And over much we wore it disgraced.

61. A flock the eagles marched with
Crossed the land flat and plateau.

62. If its lands’ eagle banners converged
They snatched a crown and hunted a hawk.

63. Al-Jiyzawi witnessed from them a band
Who wore aggression over aggression seized.

64. Like the wasteland’s wolves from lengthy discord
And varying howl in color and fright.

65. A youth led them to the conquest in the land
If his fortune had delayed he’d lead the companions.

66. His setback deluded the people in him
Many wounds gathered on the lion the flies.

67. There appeared to them in spectacular view
Horsemen like flowers in beauty and fervor.

68. The horsemen were adorned in it with treasure
And the horses’ majesty pearls and metals.

69. In weaponry like the armor’s adornment that
Did not touch a stab or feel a strike.

70. Egypt was cast so it was a mummy
Between two thieves who wanted to pull it.

71. The most valiant of them won it
Of the war’s wolves, and the tallest fang.

72. The valley’s sons, defenders of sanctity,
Stood from its march the army’s tails.

73. The stance of the incapable in war’s alliance
Guarding loads or watering the wounded.