1. We hope and desire to give throughout our lives
Yet death comes upon us in the garden of youth

2. If old age aspired for our lifespan
Our mosques would be too small for the gray-haired and the aged

3. Ask and you will see a country with none but the youth in it
Be amazed if you find one aged

4. I wonder at those not kept awake
By the wailing of mourners between dawn and nightfall

5. O you who makes his house’s mud thick
Wash your hands for you have been called to travel

6. Leave the houses and leave the clay for the winds and rain to inhabit
It will be left for the winds and rain by one who will leave it

7. We inhabit a life only to reside in it
Alas! None will inhabit it but the grave

8. How many nations before us were masters of glory
Their dwellings are now lessons for those who reflect

9. Abandoned ruins with razed walls
Were it not for remaining signs among the ruins

10. They did not attain hopes in it nor departed
Except as examples for those in it and at risk

11. In them is a lesson and admonition and remembrance
Yes! And the honored are a lesson for those who remember

12. This time is one in which wherever you look
Your eyes will fall upon a lesson

13. Tell the proud one whom we always appease
With laughter that the Day of Separation he will smile at agony

14. The Day of Mutual Loss you know not if you will be driven
Among the crowds either in Paradise or Hellfire

15. You disobey God yet hope for triumph from Him tomorrow
Did your mother create you to shoot without a bowstring?

16. Whoever fears turns to God for the fearful
Have anxious murmurs at night of remembrance and recitation

17. The proud one sleeps but sleeps tilted
Over the mosques the tear of the vigilant fearful one

18. The proud one sleeps but the Reckoner does not
Nor the risen one, nor the caller to denouncement

19. The proud one is never gloating at the abundant
Misfortunes of a man who forgot the preaching of mortals

20. Misery is not what the days bring of affliction
But miserable is he cast away in Hellfire

21. He who is dragged with trailing entrails
In chains and shackles into Hellfire

22. He who under shades of fire is struck
By a torrent of molten, stench-filled, filthy pus

23. He whose corpse is turned black, baked
By embers which he throws back with his rear

24. He who is submerged in hot spring that boil him
Rolling from stone to stone in haste

25. He whose attire is fire when he sees
Above the iron when it is flipped in the blaze

26. He whom snakes bite yet is not saved from their grip
Thirsty, disgusted, disgruntled, annoyed

27. He who eats thorns which melt what is
In his belly entirely from front to rear

28. He wearing tar garments, scorched
On back and chest by hellish embers

29. He whose stench makes his body’s smell
More rotten than the ugliest image

30. He who in the depths of death asks for
Obliteration but is not saved from the abyss

31. Hanging shades descend upon shades above
And shades below, all shades blackened

32. So embers lift him up and pitch covers him
And God smites him with sparks and flaming embers

33. A fire which when it snarls in rage or gasps in fury
The inhabitants scream of woe and perdition

34. A fire which when it blazes and its blaze intensifies
None will remain in it and none will survive

35. An abode whose afflictions have no end
Where there is never solace for the broken

36. The slain within it were long distressed
An abode of disgrace, misery, and harm

37. Its inhabitant despaired of ever seeing joy again
Having pleaded in vain for mercy and salvation

38. Indeed someone will say this is for what your hands
Reaped yesterday so taste it and dwell in it and endure

39. The sleeper has no argument against the Merciful
After the Scripture and people have no excuse

40. Indeed he who made piety his mount
Will awake in Paradise with influence

41. At dawn he embraces maidens confined
To tents, fair, with dark eyes, chaste, upon beds

42. Maidens with gleaming skin, shy-eyed damsels
Who smile with a dash of charm and glance of maidenhood

43. Walking with a sway not of laziness
But of anklets tinkling round their feet

44. They pass through the pavilions together
With trails of silk and glimmering diaphanous gowns

45. Of the maidens there is none but glimmers
In a garden of luscious green meadows

46. Her radiance is watered by the water of youth
Still flowing fresh, pristine, and clear

47. Pure white among the pure laughing
Amidst laughter her gaze laughing through the laughter

48. A budding blossom, blossoming, who surpasses
With her shine the sun’s and the moon’s blossoms

49. A shining star whose kohl is as black as
Her blackness, her charm as charming as the spell

50. A bough, were her clothes to slip off, would shine
As a well-rounded and firm-calved young maiden

51. When the bridegroom lifts her veil
At their union, the veil of reticence and virtue falls

52. In a Paradise whose lights radiated and whose
Streams flowed through its trees and rainfall

53. In a Paradise whose walls were embellished and whose
Branches bent, shaded by shade and feathers

54. In a Paradise musk-scented amidst its sweet basil
While the Spirit’s breeze blows through its trees

55. In a Paradise secured and tranquil, where souls
Are reassured from corruptions and evil

56. Blessed is its dweller, attaining in it
A seat of sincerity near the Almighty

57. Blessed is its dweller, attaining in it
And what it contains of good

58. Blessed is its dweller, attaining immortality
In bounties that remain without distress

59. Blessed is its dweller, being in prominence
Above the heavenly chambers, of sovereignty and might

60. Blessed is its dweller, its dwelling is blessed for him
Blessed is he and for him is blessing among mankind

61. Blessed is its dweller, blessed is its inhabitant
Blessed is its citizen, blessed his triumph

62. The fortunate one won it, a gift for him
Were acts of duty prescribed in Scriptures

63. And stepping forward where the brave charge in its cause
Under banners, a foot in the bloody fray

64. Where the clouds of war clash and pour down
Showers of their transparent, piercing rain

65. Where he rose steadfast until he became
Upon the basin of death fate’s recompense

66. Then pleasures, for when the vein is firewood
The most beautiful and chaste women shine with wine

67. Then pleasures, where today is its seeker?
Where is the manly-hearted knight with spirit?

68. Yearning for she who has captivated my soul, for what
Has captivated it – if I were given aid against adversities in my path

69. The honorable chivalrous proud men died, yet remains
One who cannot competently carry eggs or danger

70. I am one whose nation forsook their religion
Fearful of the disobedient and the likes of them, complacent

71. I am one whose nation does not rage when
Honor is violated and goes to another

72. Shame on a people who worship through it
One who wrongs or oppresses wantonly

73. Shame on a people I did not call to good
Except they rushed instead to ‘wait’

74. Who can remove my worries caused by
Those born whose lack makes me wait expectantly?

75. Who can remove my worries so I may
Lighten some burden off my humanity?

76. I complain to the Judge then to
My son Shuhaib – they are my burdens after Him

77. Sheikh of loyalty Ali, man of loyalty, my brother
Sheikh of loyalty Ali, man of high principles

78. O two scholars, most luminous, take
My words slowly and comprehend fully my case

79. I called to the Merciful in a time
When guidance was marginalized, its influence erased

80. So His aid intensified when I stood up and
Its banners rose, illuminating desert and urban dwellers

81. Then the world’s trials overwhelmed me and
Did not send me troops of patience and triumph

82. The disobedient rose insolently and conspired
By God! Not to aid truth, ever

83. So the righteous dreaded them and the sparks
Of guidance that illuminated now shuddered and quaked

84. But the Exalted God willed to inform us
Like the messengers and caliphs in eras passed

85. So today we face the envy of haters, and I
Have loved your victorious support, counsel, and soldiers

86. So I entrust you two, my brothers, today and charge you
With victory – you are my pillars and grantors of triumph

87. Rise with your siblings’ love of me, do not sleep
While you remain my power and needy refuge

88. Be generous, strengthen my resolve. Rather, spread my case
Give strength to my pillars, fulfill my needs and wants

89. For man’s siblings, nothing but his siblings
Are his ribs, so if they betray him, he has no recourse

90. Do not worry, for what I hope will suffice you
Against an eager or unknowing enemy

91. Indeed, times are such that few like you remain
In them, so he who wore the garb of loyalty is now naked

92. He who consults the generous in giving, gives, while with
The ungenerous there is only the view to excuse

93. Far from you! For the loftiness befitting you, your merit
Is manifest in hardship and ease

94. But I am a man who finds no refined company
Without my poems provoking them, yet they are not provoked

95. For the living are pained by the sting of words, yet
The flesh of the dead feels no sting of carrion-feeders

96. I ask God for forgiveness for you both
And eternity in the chambers of eternity by the river

97. With Ahmad, God’s prayers and peace upon
The Best of Creation, his family and progeny