1. No praise of you we ever turn from nor
Have the people another path to follow

2. So favor us, happily, with general boons
Since details we aren’t skilled at extolling

3. Your glory’s virtues so dazzled our minds
That praisers fall short and fail in their eulogies

4. Though you grant riches without asking, still
Make our minds comprehend when we question

5. The deeds you create are free of all needs
To say or pronounce so as to be lauded

6. Your great acts shine clear, none can obscure
Nor obscure them through falsehood or doubting

7. Each day we see deeds, hear of acts done by you
Borne witness to truly by honest witnesses

8. You’ve no doubts that justice suffices to guard
Your reign—let justice, then, be your preserver

9. So perpetuate it, defeating each king
Whose iniquities led to his reign being shortened

10. Your name’s fixed high above heaven so none
Can remove it before the world itself crumbles

11. So defend the religion, defend your own kin,
And the Imam—be his boon and ally!

12. When hands were extended, hands stopped from begging;
When lightning rods drew the storm clouds, rain poured

13. The greater your glory and might became
The greater your pardoning the sinful inclined

14. And when the glories you claimed grew in number
You assumed duties no others could shoulder

15. When someone does wrong, you shower with gifts—
We say he came penitent, or came thirsty for favors

16. A strange, new convention none walked in before—
No precedent showed it, no guidepost directed

17. Though you surpassed all who in splendor excelled
You truly remained the unequaled nonpareil

18. You mastered caprice, tamed it into your slave
Through judgments no swaying could ever dislodge

19. You ruled with a will none could bend, never unjust,
With wisdom no twist in its probity could battle

20. Great deeds the like of which can’t be conveyed
By metaphors’ likening or similes’ prattling

21. If ancients had seen them, they would have confessed
Surpassing whate’er their achievements could boast of

22. Their feats you obliterated, just as the Wise
In his Gospel and Torah rent deeds of their fossils

23. So pardon the wrong-minded, straying confused,
As you pardon the minds that can’t grasp the enigma

24. True leadership found your insightful support
As you aided and made its defenders invincible

25. You granted it knowledge, forbearance—and so
Merits sublime honors and tributes most sacred

26. Thus you were exalted to glorious heights
None had attained, where you found not a rival

27. Eras were unruly, then gentle when you
Ruled them, heeding God’s word and His Apostle’s

28. Each dawn, each nightfall, resolved to perform
True aims, and to follow the soundest opinions

29. A nobility, when roused, abases the mighty
And strengthens the abject whenever it champions

30. When Byzantines failed to win your consent
Their kingdom, by rights, merits loss and defeat

31. Though they thought themselves safe, if you fought
They were shattered, destroyed, reduced to bare bones

32. Impregnable fortresses duped and misled them
Like mountains delude stupid man-eating ogres

33. Over those lowlands your lightning bolts loomed
Smiting vast armies, flattening hills into crumbs

34. No mere winds which uproot palms when they gust
Like gales of your wrath, wrecking elephant tusks

35. So rouse the fierce lions whose dread roars affright
Vainglory and boasting with terror and fright

36. Whose swords shone, needing no claws to lay low
All men who, when warned, to their womenfolk flee

37. With pouncing they’ve honed—since first tasting blood—
To spring at foreheads when battleclouds loom

38. When you order their onslaught at spilling blood, unlawful,
Their blades must obey you and strike without mercy

39. I see no humility generating glory:
True glory’s the kind that extinguishes knaves

40. By my life, you spread over Muslims a shade,
A sheltering cloak, merciful, shadowy, wide

41. You sheltered them, sheathed like a sword in its case
And flashing bare steel to fend dangers away

42. Now, lodged by your door, times have turned from their woes
And they glimpse happiness after misfortunes untold

43. They now look on grave perils grown simple and light
After viewing the simple grow grave and take flight

44. No enemy threats have disturbed their repose
Since peace at your doorstep filled all their hearts’ goals

45. While those who hope you will favor their plea
See the nights quickly pass, fleet and serene

46. While your enemies’ minds have been harried with woes—
Lasting madness and envy their sole lifelong goal

47. No feast day goes by, no event comes to pass
But you grace it, and joyfully join in its call

48. Live on in a realm where you’ve conquered your foes
Now humbled, now vanquished by words or by swords—

49. For sake of your splendid, magnificent brothers,
Both chosen by birth and deeds nobly selected

50. You care for them equally, one as the other,
Alike in high lineage, acts, father, ancestors

51. They planted the branches of virtue when tender
Through piety's care, through forbidding the ugly

52. Well-known for their merits when aged or when younger
Since both trod the path of abolishing evil

53. And censure, both dragged their robes’ hems through its muck
Good looks they enhanced by munificent charm

54. Adding beauty to beauty, and fair to the fair
Where no rancor festers in hearts sheepish-meek

55. And hands grasp no more than their labors can reap
While that race disappeared, you dawned in our clime

56. As they faded away into evening’s dim time
Who yearns for his people need yearn but for you—

57. There his wishes find welcome and there rest his hopes
Where minds can voice thoughts and the stumblers recover

58. And losers find shelter, the fallen gain splendor
A sanctuary barring all stillness of languor

59. Since there I’m denied all attempts to repose
I came seeking boons but expected no more

60. Than my fancy presumed or supposed I should get
But your riches sufficed not by merely removing

61. My poverty—no!—you destroyed my deep sloth
You persisted unstinting until I received

62. Some taste of your bounty, copious and true
Like thick thundershowers that saturate one land

63. Then soak all the others in billows anew
So I deemed I could satisfy all of your gifts

64. But instead my attempts met with failure complete
If I journeyed to China with countless brigades

65. They could not convey even part of the sum of your blessings
So slow down! For already my share of your grace

66. Has exceeded the goals of all wishes of mine
Gifts that, with the cold, seem to shy from my gaze

67. Though in fact they are heavy and generous of line
If I were permitted, I’d traverse the breadth of all earth

68. Continually hymning your gifts with no pause
But no! Gently softly! My hopes have ascended

69. Beyond spells and charms and the need for such chants
Despite hindrances barring my audience with you

70. Would that they not bar me from singing your praise!
A sickness so dire I’m as pale of complexion

71. As a yellow-hued flower, so thin, so drawn out
Let Egypt persist hearing this as my creed:

72. That I’ll never abandon affection for you!
If you heal my frail frame, you give hope that was dead

73. A new lease, but if not, you have left me no choice—
For I’ll not be content among vital men breathing

74. If I can not meet you nor gaze on your face
I will press on my feet though they shudder and weaken

75. Be I blameworthy or blameless, absolved or accused
Tracers tracing the traces, convincingly recognizing

76. Both the frowning of strangers and the smiles of true intimates
Of lightnings revealing the distant as near

77. When you are their quest, and the gloomy as bright plains
Who’d deem brevity best should know I’m enamored

78. Of prolixity solely when writing your name