1. I wish I knew why I'm deprived
While others are graced by the Merciful

2. Is it because I gather people
To recite the Holy Quran?

3. Or is it because after every prayer
I pray for the state and the sultan?

4. For what reason are some given places
In the sultan's charity, not others?

5. A thousand dinars were sent to us
Then two thousand more came after

6. Yet I received not one dirham
Such is the essence of wrongdoing

7. Ibn al-Baha claimed the generous gifts
Of the great king of exalted repute

8. Did not suffice all the schools
Even if a dirham or two were added

9. By my life, half the money was available
But forgotton, left to dissipate

10. If I say this falsely of him
Then seek proof against me

11. Were not the number of scholars
Afterwards two hundred, before one thousand?

12. Count it by what was spent in dinars
And quarters for the prominent ones

13. You will find it one thousand five hundred
Besides what the treasurer took

14. I do not attribute this to Baha
Save for his weak faith

15. He betrayed the people yet swore by God
He did not betray the treacherous

16. Whenever dinars arrived
Baha pounced on them like a demon

17. He stretched out his hand in betrayal
So all tongues denounced him

18. By my life, had he feared God in secret
People would have feared him openly

19. In any case, I thank God
Who spared me from asking

20. For great harm and humiliation befell
The schools in taking from them

21. And by insult the honor was removed
Of those in them, so loss came not profit

22. How can I forget the Shihab’s public words
God curse all with loose tongues

23. They deceived us, by God, concerning
What they give, palms not scales

24. Oh the plight of the poor
If one was entrusted with food in Ramadan