1. Are hands most deserving to be adorned and revered,
And worn as necklaces, organized and esteemed?

2. Should days dress them in jewelry and robes
And eras appoint for them holidays and seasons?

3. The first hands were lanterns of their time
Lighting the way at night for one clad in ignorance’ darkness.

4. They showed the lost the path to tread
Guiding them through life on a straight course.

5. Truly if the famous were weighed by their works
And each came with what they pioneered translated,

6. The generous writers would come to record
A numbered account for every excelling leader.

7. Who in the East resembles Abdullah, a scholar
With no peer from my Lord in ascent or knowledge?

8. His students beyond count, you see them
As constellations across horizons and stars.

9. Knowledge he taught poured over regions
Overflowing, and who can dam the sea's swell?

10. The Arab tongue he armed with fifty proofs
To straighten what leans and clarify the ambiguous.

11. From his mind’s orb unsheathed swords
That routed the forces of grammatical error in disarray.

12. Whoever humbles himself serving knowledge
Is most deserving to live honored and cherished.

13. He climbed the summit of investigative grammar
Beyond what predecessors attained and surpassed.

14. Had he met Sibawayh and his group
Sibawayh, by my life, would be the foreigner!

15. That book of his would not have been so wondrous
Nor would the apple's scent have been so sweet.

16. Had his coming been in ancient times
He would have dazzled al-Jahiz’s very eyes.

17. Al-Farisi and ibn Faris would be with him
While you exonerated them of such perception.

18. Doubt would have lodged in al-Mubarrad's mind
And ibn Janni would have fretted in agony.

19. Ibn ‘Usfur would have folded his wings
Though before today he flew to the heavens.

20. Had they debated him just once
They would have seen wonders beyond imagining.

21. Glory beside him is lesser
And Sihah al-Jawhari has declined like him.

22. Had al-Zamakhshari been his peer it would distress him
For he never boasted having outdone him.

23. With him, pride in Arabic was given such
As he selflessly desired and sought.

24. For the nation of eloquence, zeal rose in him
Mixed with flesh and blood in fervent passion.

25. His life he spent as a sword leading its strikes
Throwing them into disarray cloven and partitioned.

26. Dazzling the vision of any shining light
Though the blind may reject the light’s provision.

27. Revealing the essence of each obscurity
Veiled by the cloud of ignorance it was shrouded in.

28. Never on a day of discord did he belong
To a detracting group, except to bridle them.

29. Each generation found him rising
To shoot arrows that pierce, by my life, when shot.

30. If Arabic wished to repay his struggle
It would erect for him above the heavens a minbar.

31. So who can blame me, having drunk my fill
From his spring, to overflow with his renowned mention?

32. We knew his merit and favor to us
With no repayment made or pact agreed upon.

33. I am but one who received goods
And gleaned as much as my strength and business would allow.

34. Merit belongs to the Giver
When people see me clad in a patchwork coat.

35. It is but an echo of his voice
And mimicry of one who was generous and bestowed.

36. O teacher of teachers, we all salute you
As the most honorable fever's refuge.

37. Had the Arabs been fair to you no Arab
Would remain on its surface but came submitting to you.

38. Had Lebanon properly given you thanks
Nearly every boulder in it would speak!

39. You accepted praise that, had it been grains of sand,
Would not fulfill your right even heaped and piled.

40. You met deficient, blundering criticism
With no more than living and being safe.