1. O sister of Andalusia, peace be upon you,
The caliphate and Islam have departed from you,

2. The crescent fell from the sky, if only
It were folded and darkness covered both worlds,

3. Fate brought it humiliation and removed it from its summit
A decree that eclipses the full moon at its peak,

4. Two wounds through which the two nations bled
One still flows while the other cannot be stanched,

5. With them the Muslims were struck and through them
The stronghold was razed and the sword sheathed,

6. Its mourning has not ended while this is a mourning
They donned black for you in it and stood

7. Between the time of its fall and the time of your fall the days passed
In what we love and what we hate,

8. Generations have passed like a night and the
Conquests have aged as if they were dreams,

9. Time does not cease to warn kingdoms
So if they neglect, no blame can be placed upon it,

10. Macedonians and Muslims are one tribe
How can cowardice be in you and turbans?

11. Do you see them humbled when with their glory
And elevation Islam would strut proudly?

12. When you were the lion’s fang every regiment
That set upon you was prey and carrion,

13. The days have not changed until the cupbearer changed
And the condition of the cup changed,

14. Have you seen how the Lion of Damascus was replaced
And have you witnessed how the sanctuaries were violated?

15. They accused you of coveting the caliphate with ill intent
Yet are kingdoms comfort and sleep?

16. And some say you once scented an abundant pasture
And I see you congested with throngs,

17. And you are seen by the ignorant as the malady of kingship
With them, kingship is sickness and ills,

18. If they preferred reform you would have been
A pillar at the zenith of the stars erected,

19. And a concern that shackles some of them to others
Yet the shackles of this world are delusions,

20. False visions are many and the ugliest is when
The resolute look without their insightful eyes,

21. Many a stand can be taken by swords but not
By the stumbling of the peoples’ morals,

22. And one who heralds peace, I said perhaps
It is better, may the dreams prove true,

23. The two parties ceased fighting, this is
Peace more bitter than fighting and discord,

24. One denounces the king to us, a denouncer whose feet
Have not trodden earth nor have steps carried him,

25. A lightning whose hidden depths are lightning bolts all
And of lightning bolts and clouds some are hidden,

26. If he was evil he would not cease to frequent us
Or if he was good the visit would be to bid farewell,

27. Yesterday Africa turned and a kingdom fell
Upon the neck of destruction a brave resolve,

28. The crescent tied together four kingdoms
In the morning, no longer bound by harmony,

29. Of the conquests of Hashim and Umayyah none
Were founded by Persian nor foreigner,

30. And today the judgment of God in Macedonia—
For us in it neither breach nor pact—

31. Whatever remained of the West has vanished
So peace be upon the House of Othman,

32. It seized cities and villages in its clutches
An army of allies rapacious and gluttonous,

33. It covered the bare earth and filled its expanse
And clothed its shoulders in hills,

34. Before its horses the disgraces walk
However they walk while tyranny and crime rule,

35. And wicked extremists spur it on in the name of scripture
They were aroused for what in scripture is sacrilege,

36. And they control kingdoms, the peoples subjugated,
As if they were cattle tended,

37. Every butcher who aspires to breasts in
The raptors’ haunt finds them game,

38. His knife and his right hand and his belt
And the sword—all are sins,

39. Jesus, your path is mercy and love
In both worlds and inviolability and peace,

40. You were no shedder of blood nor a man
Whose weakness the frail and orphan feared,

41. O bearer of the creation’s sorrows
With your name sorrows have multiplied upon it,

42. You who made all people as kin
Yet in your name wombs are severed,

43. Lo, the day of judgement in the reign of Joseph
And today in your name twice established,

44. How the hunt of kings frenzied them and frenzied them
And horsemen and flags converged,

45. Tyranny in everyone’s religion is base
While peace is covenant and war is bond,

46. And today tribes shout out with the cross
For God and His spirit they are shadows,

47. They mixed your cross and daggers and stretches
Each a tool of harm and vultures,

48. Or have you not seen them slaughter their neighbors
Between homes as if they were sheep,

49. How many a suckling babe in the bosom of bounty tomorrow
Will have at the edge of swords weaning,

50. And a little girl whose pride of chastity was ravished
And her robes of light torn away,

51. And my eighty-year old brother whose dignity was violated—
Neither feebleness nor age protected him,

52. And a war wounded man thirsty and given
No solace by a wound's blood or depth,

53. And refugees whose homelands have been rendered
Unrecognizable, lost the path bewildered and confused,

54. The sword, if they opt for flight, is their path
While slaughter, if they seek rest, is their place,

55. They look around bidding farewell to their lands
And the glance is water and the lands decayed,

56. O nation fragmented by the decrees of destiny
When dreams come do you renege and violate?

57. Why this cowering while behind you are nations
Whose rights are infringed and oppressed?

58. God bears witness I was no partisan
In calamity, neither faction nor part,

59. And if I called for harmony, I am but a poet
Whose utmost reach is love and harmony,

60. Who wearies of afflictions, his utmost effort
Is to resign to fate and submit,

61. Let not some of you take others
To account, for the judgments have elapsed,

62. Nights seal the fate of a man or his
So praise belongs to their Sovereign and blame,

63. It is the habit of history to fill its judiciousness
With justice and its quivers with arrows,

64. That which the protector’s armor cannot deflect—
Not books can deflect it nor pens—

65. Verily the predecessors opened great conquests
They entered the lion's den and slept

66. This they have bequeathed you
With patience and pardon so the pardoned are generous,

67. They erected the building on swords so it did not last
What is built on swords endures not,

68. The kingdoms most everlasting are those whose origins
Are knowledge and whose justice is cornerstone and pillar,

69. So if you walk straight and proper your affairs
Then go with the light of knowledge for it is your reins,

70. And leave aside boasting of heritage even if abundant
For glory is earned and eras fickle,

71. Arrogance, when it possesses a nation
Is like flowers hiding death, it is ruin,

72. Do not be tempted by some fleeting worldly pleasures
Over the kingdom’s authority, they are mirage and rubble,

73. And positions not held properly just as idols
Have taken the place of role models,

74. The kingdom is the station of nations so if it squanders
The glory of sovereignty the nations are left to waste,

75. And among the beasts some are sated and pampered
And of silk there are both fine garb and reins,

76. Time stands with you as it did with Tariq
Despair behind and hope ahead,

77. Patience and determination—if both are killed
It is hesitation that should be blamed,

78. Evidence estimates the extent of its claims but does not estimate
The extent of determination's unbounded reach,

79. This remnant, had you sought it a lasting state
Like the rightly-guided reign or Hisham's days,

80. The share of imams and caliphs before you
In the earth—its divisions you did not equal,

81. Prophecy flowed in the purity of its expanse
And revelation walked upon it, an inspiration,

82. And the two rivers in it overflowed, and Baghdad blossomed
Under its shades, and Syria,

83. Its coasts flourished and its land was wholesome
So pearls are stagnum and freshet silt,

84. Glory, Adirenne! Thus the protector stands firm
For the enraged, and steps stand fixed,

85. And a spot taken by blood is reclaimed by it
And the beast dies defending its den,

86. And kingship is taken or restored, it does not cease
For the sword to inherit the lands from sword,

87. The glory of caliphate, a fighter has protected
A soldier for God, a zealot for the Messenger resolute,

88. The homelands seek refuge behind its mountain passes
And around its peaks the banners gain glory,

89. Othman in his furs defends his army
And Ibn Walid at the fortress steadfast,

90. Time knew the place of Shukri and gratitude ended
With him and to him deference and awe come to rest,

91. Patience, Adirenne! For every kingdom passes
One day, while the Omniscient King remains,

92. The call to prayer softens—you have no need
Of a caller to oneness nor congregations to be held,

93. And the mosques that were beacons bringing all light dimmed
Where lion and Arab walked side by side,

94. Women cloaked in white veils will enter
The sanctity of prayer walking like doves,

95. And the graves of conquerors have decayed, strewn over
The pits of caliphs ruins and rubble,

96. They were ransacked despite their glory as were
Their pyramids despite their loftiness,

97. In the custody of history are five months
Each day upon you like a year imposed,

98. The sword in disgrace, the plague unleashed,
And flood in fear, and snow accumulated,

99. And hunger lethal, and among you are men—
Had they not starved in war—who would have fasted,

100. They disdained your honor being sold and purchased
For the honored women's virtue cannot be traded,

101. The siege tightened as if its links
Were orbiting planets and their hurtling rocks,

102. And the enemy pelted you and you pelted them with hellfire
From what God pours and not people,

103. The enemy bought every handspan with a body part
Thus kingship is bought when it is sought,

104. Still between you under siege and them the sniffing
Of fortresses, and the likes of them ruins,

105. Until graves surrounded you and you surrounded them
With corpses—so neither loss nor regret,