1. He who has strayed from the spring of revelation has gone astray,
And slipped in explaining its hidden secret.

2. He wandered as Abu Al-Ward wandered,
With a morsel that led him astray, then he turned away from that morsel.

3. Yet he left behind for that morsel a state
In which there is death, then resurrection for religion and frailty.

4. We are led to death by necessity, as though we
Are a sacrifice led forcibly to demise.

5. If we encounter it, we turn to destruction,
And its source shows us the place of doom.

6. So its arrival does not become clear through its source,
Nor does its reality become sweet heralding relief.

7. It's as though I'm in the eye of destruction and it's asleep,
When it stirs to execute the sentence of justice upon the half.

8. While we see between a promise if we act
And a threat - so judgement is upon a letter.

9. You see us while the strides of life knock at its edge,
So away with a stride, then away from the edge!

10. Eighty strides, more or less is its limit,
And the steed of life stumbles at the racetrack of pause.

11. We're not wronged in it, but rather
Our nature inclines toward death due to frailty.

12. Had it not been fated with death and decay
It would have strayed in what it strayed from the All-Sufficient Creator.

13. Yet minds still went astray in what they conveyed
And they boasted - and the harm was in that conceit -

14. Branches of religions from the religion of their Lord,
Dazzled by what they saw of bedazzlement.

15. A secret was intimated to them, so they were confused,
And when they disclosed it, they saw the misguidance of the secret.

16. The ray of truth shone through their claim,
And the train of the gown of doubt hangs down in tatters.

17. So O you who conceal the reality of His religion from us
With the claim that religion is secretly concealed!

18. If it were true, it would be more fitting to reveal it,
And if it were falsehood, why would you commit falsehood?

19. Do you fear revealing the one praised in his essence
Openly? Yet the best praise is that which is specially revealed.

20. Jewels we display so we may enjoy their beauty,
And a defect we cover up, fleeing from vilification.

21. You supported a religion that is vague, obscured
With some myths that you use to justify yourself -

22. Geomancy, astrolabe, conjunction, astrolith,
Sorcery and star observations with the planets.

23. That is alchemy with the semiotics of nativities
Which captivates the mind, distracting it from the perfect description.

24. You depicted your questionable doctrine as orthodox
With which a misguided sect went astray from truth and custom.

25. Answer me if the religion sneered with laughter,
What then is the merit between truth and lies in the scriptures?

26. If it is said the sword is more decisive than the staff,
What then is the merit of the polished sword over straw?

27. If it is said the hoof is swifter in battle
Than the script, what is the merit of the steed over the letter?

28. You claim the truth is enigmatically with you
In a letter concealed by mystery in that letter.

29. So if the religion of truth is joined with you,
Why do you claim, fearing its revealing light, that heals?

30. You have villainized a people hostile to it due to their ignorance of it
While it is hidden - and that is quite enough from something hidden!

31. So what is the sin of its critic, while your religion is obscure?
And how can the mind and knowledge be slighted?

32. Far be it for the Lord of Power to destroy one
Who disobeyed His command while it remains concealed without revealing!

33. And you recited in the secret of the blinding darkness through which
You have concealed the narrations of the epistles gently,

34. The symbols of numbers and embodied spirit
And patience, and the fires of life along with doom.

35. You have rendered our salvation obscure to us, O Abu Baraqish,
And ambiguated it with the noun, verb, and letter.

36. You made it enigmatic in the fold of complex poetry
Whose meanings and words are extremely obscure -

37. Rhymes and incorrect rhyming, metres and upholding them
Then refraining along with exaggeration.

38. You enumerated from those who praise you a name and agnomen
And you were ambiguous in your claim over what you conceal.

39. So sometimes you show us Al-Khidr embodied in you
And sometimes the philosopher upon true accord.

40. And sometimes you show us Al-Wasil then Al-Fa'il (the achiever),
And sometimes you show us the possessor of might through violence.

41. And sometimes you show us that you are sending God
Your book along with the messengers of good news and harmony.

42. So where is a book or messengers of yours among us?
If you came with the truth, you would show with kindness!

43. So you confused us, O Abu Baraqish! Tell us
Your purpose - do not fear revelation along with revealing!

44. You denied us news of your eye, fearing revelation.
But the mind is satisfied with revealing!

45. You concealed your praised elixir from us
And its praised remedy from pain that heals.

46. So produce it if it be true and verifying
That we may be healed from the malady of blasphemy and vilification!

47. Do not stubbornly substitute truth for lies
Nor reconcile us to that with coarseness and sweetness!

48. You have proposed in the science of mathematics, declaring
It benefits - and the best knowledge is that which is complete in description.

49. So tell me, what is the knowledge of mathematics declaring?
And what is asceticism? What are the limits of purity gently?

50. What is contemplation? Its categories? Its attributes?
And what are the ten perceptions in that circumstance?

51. What is the purpose in defining each major sin,
What is the limit of minor ones in custom?

52. What is the intellect? What is its comprehension, Master of Creation?
And what is the viewer of the mental in the world of drinking vessels?

53. What is the weakness of the innate failing in us and its deficiency?
And what is the cure for every deficiency and weakness?

54. What is conceit? What is discrimination in each case?
And its details in quantity, quality and description?

55. What is devotion? What is abstinence from every desire
Through monasticism built upon asceticism and rough garb?

56. Respond openly, from brilliant acumen,
And delve into the sciences of God, O knowledgeable one, it suffices!

57. A God we have seen through traces of His creation
And origination of the two worlds in the grasp of Power.

58. Transcendent is He in His Essence beyond front or behind,
Nor time that can be counted within a circumstance.

59. His Word is a second hypostasis to the First,
And its third is the Comforting Spirit without contrast.

60. But He in Essence, Kingdom and actions is One God
To Him belongs all arrangement in His creation without rival.

61. We worship Him imagining a delimited person
And transcendent is He above a person that a description would delimit!

62. For His attributes contain meanings of His majesty
And traces of His Power over all the arrogant.

63. He is seen from spiritual armies He may show at His command
With an innate spirit, not of the embodied seed.

64. Of fire they came through the Power of an Able One
Without bodily primal matter, a detachment upon detachment.

65. Transcending death, food, swiftly moving about,
Not confined to land or heaven.

66. Rather, the confines defined their place
To distinguish them from the Creator of beings gently.

67. Taking shapes and forms of pictured embodiment
Commanded to move and pause.

68. When Satan rebelled while being left to choose,
The God of the Kingdom exiled him from His Kingdom that suffices.

69. He did not return after exile and banishment,
Not to mention the fire that subdued the exiled one.

70. He constructed the heavens, the excellent harmony of them,
A Mighty One transcendent in His Might over weakness!

71. He adorned them among those moving with their motion
While the fixed ones are like pearls in graceful splendor.

72. He stretched out the earth when He willed, exalted is His Power
Over the water and the waves flowing without pause.

73. He encircled it with surging, turbulent seas
Like the new moon's crescent fallen on the night of mid-month.

74. He ignited in it the two luminescent bodies east and west
And sustained them through decrease, eclipse and concealment.

75. He created Adam from clay, speaking
And adorned him with spirit, intellect and aptitude.

76. The strength of his soul is contemplation, comprehension and judgment after which
Comes the will in a steadfast intellect, most gentle kinship.

77. He first created the body then after a moment
He truly created the soul - thus is our embryonic state.

78. Blessed is the Lord! Nay, the God who specified him -
So honor through him a Master soon perfect in description!

79. He appeared to us truly and delivered Adam
And the Virgin became His mother through whom he was healed.

80. He came to us in a hypostasis, a God in company
To save us from the religion of blasphemy which offers no healing -

81. Jesus, whose meaning is God the Savior,
As the prophecy made it clear in custom.

82. This then is the wondrous mystery of His manifestation
And eternality openly - far be it for me to conceal!

83. Nor have I concealed it resentfully nor to protect it
From the ignorant and violent world.

84. So this is what I have disclosed, and you are proven false!
See who turns away headlong with his nose in the ground!