1. O one whose merit tomorrow becomes greater
Above people and through time

2. Yet, you miserable cripple
Whom I address with this name

3. If I lessen what you are called
It does not lessen the meaning

4. We have tested you, an ignoble Kufan
Of despicable origin and destiny

5. The people of Kufa are the lowest of the low
A people, all individuals

6. Their defects come in pairs
So neither their near ones are saved

7. Nor their distant ones approached
The ribs of the people of this world

8. Bend in their hatred of them
Ignorant deviants

9. To the left instead of the right
Swerving misleaders

10. To evil instead of good
Their verses built

11. Without piety to God
And their guest reads in them

12. Mud and filth afterwards
We fattened them like lambs

13. Yet how can there be fat for them?
The place of shameless mongrels

14. And people of cowardly dialect
When we say "we" to them

15. We bend from their speech
How many deceitful ones among them

16. Have cheated the family of God
How many supporters among them

17. Have availed the family of God nothing
How many traitors among them

18. Have betrayed the family of God
We examined them of old

19. With an eye that knew no sleep
Yet no generation was too short for them

20. Nor dwelling too long
When their disgraces are counted

21. They are beyond number or limit
So God granted them no well-being

22. Or wealth or tranquility
God's hand is over the inhabitants

23. The dwellers, and the dwellings
And each has a trouble

24. That keeps him concerned
The worry of the despicable cripple

25. Comes from me and lingers in his mind
His ascension is pure madness

26. His descent thoroughly crazed
Whenever his hernia bulged

27. Qais inclined toward Labna