1. Whatever you wish, my friends, go ahead and say
Alas! You will never find acceptance from me

2. Had you tasted what I tasted of the pain of love
You would not have spoken so much against me

3. You told the ardently loving heart, no home
And the motley throng had no intention of leaving

4. Cooing sadly, and sorrow, though they had not
Prepared provisions for them, or saddled camels

5. Such is this passion! What if it called out for them
The tents became desolate and the abodes empty

6. So restrain your tears and pining for a while
That leaves the valiant men confused and perplexed

7. And if you can, some morning when longing calls
Let your tears in the homelands have free reign

8. Breeze of Najd, in the early dawn, to the lovesick one
For healing the ailing, the chronically ill

9. Carry to the land of Iraq a message from me
For I am pleased with none but you as messenger

10. Do not neglect Basra the fragrant, and do not
Pass over it, even slightly, in your journey

11. And ensure your passing is by way of Hudhayl, for it
Is a land I love, whose settled abodes are populated

12. Bestow upon it thousands, thousands of greetings
With musk, pure in the morning and evening

13. And single out, for the greatest share, the protector hoped for
The glorious, triumphant, rightly-guided ruler

14. Most exceptional lineage, the mystical secret, the ocean
Of flowing knowledge, the master, the reveler

15. The bearer of the burden, which if a mountain bore
Its back would bend under the enormous load

16. Relieving the destitute from having to ask
Rarely finding him, on the day of giving, questioned

17. Giving abundantly, so he does not see
Save as a passerby on the path, a conduit

18. His giving includes all people’s livelihoods
As guarantor for the provision of worshipers

19. He withholds not a dirham, save for an instant
Until he finds a son of the Nile who’s found no Nile

20. And when he stands for an hour of his day
The devout worshipper rising nightlong stays lesser

21. The ascetic, faster, not singling out fasting
In January or September or any specific month

22. Ask about him, oh questioner, blind to the sun at dawn
You have utterly failed creation in ignorance

23. Travel secretly to meet him, and do not seek a guide for others
The dawn needs no guide to elucidate it

24. And if you are bound by innate ignorance
Be silent, roam those paths a little

25. And head to the door that has no gatekeeper
Or lantern, but you will find the destitute gathered around it

26. And wayfarers and children of the path encamped
And exegetes of what they saw and narrated

27. The authenticated messengers’ path expounded
And the pale-faced, whose gloom has vanished

28. From yearning, and talking parched their lips
This one seeks villages and that recitations

29. Heard from the chosen one from Gabriel
There, cast down your staff of travel, and you will find earth

30. Soft and shade that does not cease to shelter
And company that will protect you from the noonday sun

31. When it beats down, from heat, neither veil nor shade
Oh you who are just, none other than my father

32. Could I see you, regarding not, or reasonable?
The glories of past kings refuse transgression

33. While he transgressed, trailing the skirts of his mantle
Were it not for him, it and those in it would have perished

34. And destruction run through it, dragging its train
It was darkness before him, but he restored it

35. An Egypt pleasing you, dwelling or visiting
With the bustling markets and the wall that

36. Kept enemies from tilting towards it, bent
And the linkage between schools and mosques

37. Noble, its people privileged above all
He revived therein, for Shafi’i, Malik

38. And Abu Hanifa, scripts and chapters
And the congregational mosque surpassing all others

39. In beauty and breadth of construction and height
Were it not for the coincidence of its burning in his era

40. Its features would have endured, not suspended
How many porticos he added to it, but its containment

41. Added to its ornament more ornamentation
Within it he built for the Muslims a pond

42. That diminished the Khawarnaq Ponds to the eyes
Many eras passed, with their winds

43. Blowing plunder, but he rescued its remnants, ruined
His deeds sincere for God, never finding

44. Any trace of ostentation or likeness of hypocrisy
If the nations had one like him ruling

45. God would not have sent a messenger
You are ransomed by the sun of the faith, a people you do not

46. See having any link to a connected virtue
From every one in chains, refused generosity

47. Exceeding the Jews in tyranny and wrongdoing
He appears like an ancient ‘Ad tribe to him in ugliness

48. Or Qurayza or Nadir as progeny
Scum, but when injustices are attributed

49. One day to him, you see him reject them
He fears not God on high, nor sees any

50. Good deed to his foe as goodly
He gathered debris and drew a despicable sword

51. Slandering honor and loosing his own bonds
If a cow were carried to him

52. He would squander the money entrusted
Were it not for you I would not mention this

53. But I fear cows they count extraneous
So submit, Abu Shuja’, to the Most High

54. And glory however much the doves cooed
Give and refuse as you desire, and you will not be seen

55. Except as mighty and ennobled
In the shade of the best caliph of Hashim

56. Inheritor of the Book, inspired with revelation
And have bliss in this splendid month, a bliss

57. Remaining, transporting you to purpose and cessation
And showing you your senseless, hostile envier

58. As a vile fool among the people, disgraced