1. What good is this division, these severed ties,
While homes unite, and tribes congregate?

2. God forbid this severing of family bonds,
My covenant with them is my unbreakable bond.

3. Kinship's ties, bound close to you, refuse
To see covenants, pacts and oaths undone.

4. To us, the bonds of kin are precious boons,
Sever their causes, calamity will come.

5. Our fellowship's a fortress, and if branches split
By God, beyond it we've no safe haven.

6. Is this the time, in narrow partisanship,
To break our bonds, when we need to reunite?

7. Did you ever see a faction split in two
And not come to regret the division?

8. What could Janah expect? What might Aleppo fear
From Lebanon's people? Nothing, I believe.

9. Our lands - the hand of partition gropes for them
As if they were patches taken by the blind.

10. Great cities, each an entire kingdom's seat,
Whose dimensions span miles wide.

11. No narrow valley of Mount Lebanon
Where eagles and vultures might encroach,

12. More spacious to my mind than realms
You could pace off by the yard, or mile.

13. Every kingdom whose people overflow
Becomes no kingdom, but angry crowds.

14. Only in our lands is cowardice
A thing created even for the lowliest slave.

15. We've squandered our forebears' legacy
Except for fires of malice that spark and swell,

16. Every time a peacemaker arises among us
Our hearing is deafened to his words.

17. What can Qais or Yemen avail
When we dispute everything we hear?

18. Or who might convey to Makhzoum's clan -
Those haughty, grand, aloof nobility -

19. That we demean ourselves, yet raise our noses,
Whether bleating sheep or roaring lions.

20. They said: without our unity, faith is wanting -
How long in the name of faith will you divide us?

21. If they insist on following their whims,
Neither faith remains, nor worldly goods, nor repute.