1. People have diverse ambitions, you won’t see
A brother concerned except having chosen a creed

2. So one who cares for jurisprudence becomes
A judge, professor, jurist or takes a position

3. And one endowed with grammar and language
Sees he has attained the most virtuous pursuit

4. And scorns people for it as he views
The ignorant among people as non-Arabs

5. And one busy with the rational sees
All creation deaf to the truth, obscured

6. So if among the two there is one with insight
He is called the polished imam

7. While a memorizer of Quranic readings’ terms is
Ignorant of parsing and meaning, assigned recitations

8. He recites gently what they recited heavily and heavily
What they recited gently, no refined shaykh met

9. He sees Al-Shatibi’s poem as the height of purpose
And I saw no poem by him more difficult and tough

10. A lad remains in it years
Trying to understand it while remaining tortured

11. With puzzles, riddles, jumbled gibberish
And names beyond comprehension, obscured

12. The ignorant have indulged explaining it
So one explainer fell short and another verbose

13. And its essence is the utterance of letter sounds
As if to say we copy without lying

14. This art was once easy, eloquent
But this ode made it abstruse and tough

15. And a composer of poetry who circulates among people
With censure or praise, intimidating or enticing

16. Sees composing poetry as the highest merit
While what comes naturally is no virtue, contrived

17. And a narrator of tales of bygone people
Becomes, by turns, preacher, moralizer, enticer

18. Sometimes making people cry in awe and fear
Other times giving hope to a sinner

19. And a reciter of the Quran over a dead man’s soil
Who has made vocal modulation his livelihood

20. And a collector of etiquette and letter-writing
And good handwriting, hoping to gain closeness

21. To a ruler so as to become a signatory
And have luxurious clothes and a splendid procession

22. And a carrier of nonsensical, worthless parts
Wrapping them up so they are sated and written

23. Frequenting an ignorant shaykh and an old hag
Who sees the gathering of heads as devotion

24. And all types of debauchery, not ceasing
Disobedience, whether mature or turning grey

25. Do you take the religion from the likes of these?
You have surely then gone far astray

26. The extent of his knowledge is that so-and-so
Transmitted the part of Bibi when she died in Yathrib

27. And he is titled Jarza and given the epithet
Saiqah if he excels in memorization

28. And one taking up medicine, having sought a livelihood
Whose profits are meager and loss plenty

29. Visits patients, diagnoses an illness
And asks what caused it and brought it about

30. And seizes their money, unconcerned
Whether they recover or relapse

31. His crowning feat is receiving urine in his face
And smelling filth as if smelling camphor

32. And an idler who takes up shaykhdom, enticed
By rabble, vile to their origins and their fathers

33. Gazing at the ground one moment and another
At the celestial world, listening for news

34. And riding a donkey when he himself is a donkey
So simple ignorance leading composited ignorance

35. Informing of things in his kingdom
He saw plainly, from them not obscured

36. His disciples walk around his donkey
Belts tightened around them, cloaks worn

37. Bare of knowledge, so if one is eminent
He pretends to be called the favored imam

38. Revealing to them the obscurities of a science
Which they snapped up from a whispered secret

39. From him to him about him in him appeared
Perplexities from him oozing like vapor

40. I wonder that the likes of me lived seventy pilgrimages
And nine, meeting people east and west

41. My eye did not attain one who is righteous
Except one titled among people