1. Reassure me, O Abu Ishaq, though the nights without you
Have passed like a painful, piercing arrow.

2. A brother you are, nay a son, though I call you brother,
A gift of fate, an excess of bounty untold.

3. Oh how my soul yearns, now that your gatherings
Are empty of you, unfamiliar and untrod.

4. Oh how my soul yearns, now that your clothes
Lie vacant, unworn, deprived of you.

5. Though laid low, your virtues have unfurled
A reputation towering, never to be brought down.

6. A full moon descended from its lofty mansions
Only to rise again, untouched, ungraspable.

7. O grave, do not obscure his beauty,
For it comes from a house of light, veiled by no veil.

8. A house of hadith and jurisprudence, how many sparks
In it, lit from the Lamps of God's own Light.

9. Patience, noble Abu Ishaq, from one who hopes
That life is but gifts and kisses.

10. Time is a lurking lion, and we are its prey,
Defenseless save one, the Protected Friend of God.

11. What we deem strong, we've not known protected,
What we deem weak, we've not known kept safe.

12. When it seeks to destroy mankind, it fears no ruler,
Nor spares the mighty or the humble.

13. While happiness dwelt in his blessed household,
Happiness turned to piercing grief in the bereft.

14. Such is Time; know it by its nature,
We are sacrificed; some taken, some remain.

15. Days and nights decree ruin
Upon the blissful and the wretched alike.

16. Many a Hercules, Khusrow, Marzban and Nu'man,
Qabus and more taste its bitter fruits.

17. Gone in a moment, like a lion's crushing blow,
Or a structure's collapse, rot eats away within.

18. You were rightly given your portion of sorrow and weeping,
While forbearance deserves rights, unsullied.

19. After the shipwreck of afflictions, your spirit
Will come, unconfined, from its Lord.

20. O House of Hammad, God will protect you
From the evil of each and every accursed day.

21. From enemies' eyes, your ancestors peer,
Like notched arrows, honed swords unsheathed.

22. No slander takes flight against you,
No books of calumny exist.

23. No ugly rumor circulates,
No fair word is inverted.

24. Every calamity, your cries seek help
With endless glorification and exaltation of the Holy.