1. The flags are lowered, O best of nations,
Islam is distressed by grave misfortunes,

2. So shed tears, O eyelids of the devout,
Knowledge has been struck and work has been killed,

3. Break, O heart, and exhaust sorrow,
For yesterday the rope of religion was severed.

4. Lightning struck us with an ember,
Then it went out and was kindled within us a flame,

5. The lightning brought tremendous calamity,
Would that it had been too heavy a burden for it to bear.

6. O men of religion, has it reached you
That the full moon of religion has set on earth?

7. O men of religion, do not feel safe
When the calamity of fate has befallen.

8. O men of religion, nothing worse than this
Has ever befallen us.

9. O men of religion, welcome fate
When this sea foams and the mountain crumbles.

10. O men of religion, what is this grief?
Grief that bewilders the mind and reason.

11. O men of religion, how excellent to mourn
A loss exalted in heaven and earth.

12. Perhaps after loss comes substitution,
But the loss of knowledge has no substitute.

13. Death and life are inevitable,
Decreed before this creation in the Guarded Tablet.

14. The idols we rave about
Are illusions conjured in the magic of hope.

15. All we yearn for is a mirage,
Had we understood this matter or struck a parable.

16. What death wants from our souls
It takes prematurely and originally.

17. They are only deposits that have matured,
No life is prolonged if it is complete.

18. O how my life was plagued by a curse
That ruined my vigor and hatched intrigues!

19. How miserable a life whose recovery
We awaited while it ended in fetters!

20. A promised life, deceptive and misleading,
How can one who reasons be fooled by it?

21. In its prime it is despicable,
Had man pondered its faults and defects.

22. Reason was created to grasp the ultimate,
Yet it forgot, indulged, and neglected.

23. None unaware of his state
Is like a glance that passes and a life that is summarized.

24. The issue is only the delusion of a ruler
Who robbed minds and invoked hope.

25. Souls that were satisfied with their own evil,
Seduced by the glamor of life and its intrigues.

26. Such is this world and so is its affair,
It picks lives like ripe fruit unceasingly.

27. It concealed its vileness in its beauty
And gave us poison in this honey.

28. It did not spare us any ambiguity
In details or in general principles.

29. O you of reason, do not care for it,
It will surely cast you from the top of a mountain.

30. We have tested it, but its sorcery
Brings down the resolute from the highest peaks.

31. Thus its seditions confound us
While we find comfort in its wiles.

32. All its goodness is defect,
And it is the least of things in destiny.

33. The truest news about its baseness
Is not what is told of it, made up.

34. It did not make peace with an ignorant man in his confusion,
Nor with a scholar, free and noble.

35. Everyone who struggled in it struggled in vain,
Exhausting the climber and his wits.

36. Its signs in lessons are manifest
In generations it ground up and states it demolished.

37. It has no regard for you in its tyranny,
Whether you were a king of crowns or a slave.

38. O men of knowledge, its pole has perished,
Rather all knowledge and work have perished.

39. It robbed the guided Al-Salami
In a ferocious raid with no resistance.

40. A raid that filled the earth with weeping,
And the heavens and all in them lamented.

41. A raid that his army did not protect against,
Nor did his weapons or swords repel.

42. Wondrous that his bier is carried
By young men while he embraced the universe!

43. He gathered the world in his grasp,
Do you see that the world descended into his grave?

44. O friend of God, when you bid us farewell,
Who then can we depend on?

45. Who will solve the expected problems
When none avails, however much he reasons and strives?

46. Who will dispel the darkness of ignorance, and who
Will support religion steadfastly bearing its burdens?

47. Who will guide affairs out of chaos,
Who will balance the scales, who will remedy defects?

48. Who will lead the unruly troops
In God's cause with the resolve of prophets?

49. Who conducts war by his own strategy,
With the vastness of an ocean if the space is confined?

50. Who stands for righteousness with his soul
While wrongdoing is repelled and withers away?

51. Who gives justice and benevolence freely,
Who bears all and gives supererogatory deeds?

52. You left all these matters bereft
O pillar of religion, mourned by every shoulder!

53. You rose to serve God in a matter
That defeated the resolve of champions, so you succeeded.

54. Then a miraculous sign occurred
Before which dread and all kinds of failing retreated.

55. So God called you from it with a call
To reward you for this work.

56. You stood in His service seeking reward,
Taking truth wherever you were.

57. You attained the highest ranks
And qualities of glory unmatched in time.

58. Yet I am in an age in which, alas,
Most people have gone astray and slipped.

59. You were its sun, light and guidance,
And loftiness from which benefit was derived.

60. You were the successor to the Chosen One,
Better than any leader to truth and guidance.

61. You were to the people a springtime and life,
You were to the universes a refuge and substitute.

62. Striving against your soul to spread guidance,
The best fulfiller, the most open-handed giver.

63. Patient whether in ease or adversity,
Firm of purpose, resilient, hardened.

64. Vigilant, revered, secure from errors,
Magnificent in resolve, protected from stumbling.

65. Vast in perspective that cannot be limited
By the vanities of life, status, and slavery.

66. Sound of faith, protected in conduct,
His word is conclusive even if he remains silent.

67. Walking steadily in diligence until
Every walker reaches his destination.

68. In God's cause you spent your sleeplessness
In God's desire you spent your work.

69. In God's cause worldly desires troubled you not
Whether you sipped from a cup or drank honey.

70. In God's cause you called, struggling
To establish justice or meet your appointed time.

71. In God's cause you exhausted your strength
Undaunted by formidable sorrows or mirth.

72. Raising the banners of knowledge upwards
Until Saturn came near and shone.

73. You supported God until He
Sent down to you spirit hosts from heaven.

74. It is fitting that the hosts of heaven
Support the champion of the best community.

75. They were a full moon sent as reinforcements
And by that moon one may draw analogy.

76. They and Gabriel over his bier
Glorifying him, chanting poetry.

77. They supported God with the army of the Chosen One
So the followers of vain desire retreated in disgrace.

78. Your conquests are wondrous secrets
In which miracles first appeared.

79. O friend of God, I lament for you
As the morning laments the sunset.

80. I wished this life would bring me together with you
But hopes are now closed off.

81. My soul yearns - what kept me
From you but that which exhausts stratagems?

82. Whenever I intended to journey, fate
Thwarted me with a confused life.

83. To where can I journey when
The sky has darkened and hills are desolate?

84. I hoped to receive from you a glance at my state
But now my hopes are imprisoned.

85. I was bound in severe fetters loosened
Today by senility and frailty.

86. O Abu Shibl, who can I hope
Will help me? God suffices when distress befalls!

87. O Abu Shibl, the meeting has become difficult
And destined ends are cut off.

88. O Abu Shibl, stratagems fail
To ward off death or meet one's appointed time.

89. If we supposed the dead could be ransomed
My soul would be the least expensive price.

90. Yet creation follows in it an exemplar -
An appointed term comes after each term.

91. Death necessitates predetermined lives
Even if it ascended to the celestial sphere.

92. O loss of virtue, my sorrow for you
Ask about Hellfire, and do not ask about it!

93. Patience has vanished, and if I attempted it
Patience when appropriate is for men.

94. The universe did not spare you until
You were mourned by Islam and every tyrant.

95. No life is pleasant after you in
This world, and joy has no meaning.

96. Bitter weeping brings no solace to the heart
Even if I persist shedding tears my whole life.

97. Every loss I experienced still held
Hope, though hope in death is impossible.

98. We did not lose you alone, peerless,
But we lost all good in every place.

99. We did not lose you - your knowledge
In the leaves of the universe is an eternal light.

100. The Lord of Knowledge lives immortal,
Even if His essence passed away.

101. You did not leave the universe until you left
A plan of praise - all praise to You alone!

102. Master of gnosis, my life is mourning you
As long as a star shines or sets.

103. May the horror of death silence my tongue's elegy
When my tongue's limit carves mountains.

104. I have not enjoyed life since we parted
While the believer's bliss with you is delightful.

105. I know no greater tragedy
Than the blow to religion or the loss of perfection.

106. Raising the learned raises knowledge
While raising knowledge perishes and confounds.

107. O God, death has struck Your servant
A strike that paralyzed his health.

108. Alas, God monopolized him
While knowledge remains for all time.

109. God honored our nation through him briefly
Then called him, so he departed.

110. What a departure, leaving behind
Only transferred kindness!

111. What a departure in which
The estrangement of Islam found the best abode!

112. O people of goodness, excellent is mourning
For it is a grievous disaster.

113. After Abdullah hope remains
For guidance - alas, hope has vanished!

114. Leave it, O Ibn Hamid, writhing
In blind chaos like the misleading night.

115. No one can avail you in it
When the light is veiled, paths are obscured.

116. Congratulations on the heavenly Paradise,
The best lodging in God's neighborhood!

117. The fateful year that bereaved you
Was a year of evil, affliction, and dread.

118. So its date brought sorrow -
The lowering of flags, O best of nations!