1. Descend, O my tears, in sorrow
And, O clouds, pour in torrents upon torrents

2. And find a liver which the nights have wearied
With burning embers in the heart's core concealed

3. Alas! After tribulation, what affliction yet –
What cunning mischief still contrives against me?

4. What ill news have I left to hear –
That my life is over or my essence melted away?

5. Gone is he in whom my hopes were centered
He for whose guidance and training I yearned

6. At meeting whom I readied my mount to ride
And for whose encounter was my preparation and desire

7. I felt that, were he lost from life’s domain,
My exile and estrangement would not console me.

8. To whom shall I voice my sorrow after this day?
Who will share my sadness and torment with me?

9. Woe for the proof of Islam when it waned –
That celestial light during gloomy nights!

10. Woe for the banner of banners when it fell,
Leaving no heart but stricken with links seared in!

11. He fell whilst all the mountains of knowledge bowed
Before his stature, like wandering dunes beside him.

12. Where is he whose ideas, in whatever art,
Brought us wonders and things most strange?

13. This disaster which we had feared to befall –
We now wear its skin, a nervously trembling hide.

14. Long before we had mourned it as loss without compensation
And imagined it a rift never to be mended.

15. Until, when it came, its bonds could not be locked
Save by a prior moment fraught with fright.

16. The Imam passed away, whose status
Among the leaders was on glory's pinnacles.

17. Had Islam given him his proper due
On the day when he passed, long would be our mourning!

18. Foremost was he in knowledge and in deed,
Uniting the God-given gift with the acquired.

19. He has qualities like the light breeze blowing,
And disdains amnesty when duty is forsaking.

20. Never did his inner self know rancour,
Nor was his secret aware of anything but goodness.

21. How often he would tolerate his enemies
Though they targeted him with the tail of wrongs!

22. They would burden him heavily until, having toyed
With the faith, he became like tattered shreds.

23. There, he knows no truce nor opponent
But he will take him through his arguments.

24. There, mightier in powerful arms, unrelenting
In the moment of meeting, his sword never blunted.

25. He attacks fiercely in his battles,
Knowing no opponent save one subdued.

26. Save only the genius with whom he has no connection,
Despite linkage claimed and titles given.

27. For genius is an attribute of rightly-guided ar-Rida
While genius is not through false claims obtained.

28. Compare any man of merit beside ar-Riddha
As though comparing arrows with appropriate bows!

29. The pulpits are delighted at his stepping up to them,
Just as the archways of prayer niches bow down.

30. Glorified is He who increased him in knowledge
And inspired him with such proofs in the most eloquent styles.

31. How excellent the patron of faithfulness who blotted out his fame
Rightfully, against the example of an era known for breach of trust.

32. Never did he know tyranny against the brethren at a time
When in their gatherings the hyena's traits predominated.

33. He possesses the beacon by which
The ships of the community sailed in the sea of trials.

34. A probe from the principles of Sacred Law it navigates,
Moving with reason, the companions rowing steadily.

35. The beacon was for the party of truth an extractor
Lighting their way with a ray unveiled.

36. By it the nation of Islam became argumentative,
Its reasoning illuminated in opposing camps.

37. All its parts conform to a coherence
Like the rise and fall of waves in succession.

38. In it are legal rulings which please all,
Leaving no soul in the mire of Jacob's doubt.

39. They flow into the hearing of whoever listens to its reader
Like the modulation of the warbler in the hearing of them that listen.

40. The beacon has no borrowed illumination
And no crescent within it save one finely molded.

41. How many a book by him other than the lawcodes will rise
Above the scrolls thronged and registered!

42. Every year, treatises flow from him
Like heavy rain sending down pour upon pour.

43. Crises the like of which none can undertake,
At which none gazes with covetous eye.

44. He set forth shedding every blood-drop
Poured out on the cheek's page, imploring his Lord.

45. Be gracious with me for the actions I forwarded
And give me my ample share of righteousness and reward.

46. Leave off praise that is like the wafted fragrance, unending,
Filling every region with diffusion and scattering.

47. Grief may overwhelm men through their patient endurance,
But next to me your grief is not to be overcome.

48. I shall weep for you as long as I live
And remain but a remainder of life which has no sweetness left.

49. I have with you a pact I refused to break,
Until I come to the grave and crumbling away.