1. Let one who is ascending acquire the world and its ostentation,
In knowledge of Allah I have gained in lieu of what he attained.

2. What is the concern of one whose essence of things is his contentment,
Who despairs and envies a people whose lot is but show.

3. I wonder at people who are appeased
By love of trappings, not knowing what honor is.

4. Oh minds, oh dreams to deter them!
Rather minds and dreams in them is sickness.

5. The striving of the ambitious for surplus wealth after being rich
Is forbidden, like the seeking of sustenance when already obligated.

6. Is it not a crime, one's forgetting his Creator,
When strayings and trappings have adorned themselves to him.

7. Especially when the present suffices him,
The knower of God is averse to such things.

8. If souls had faith in God, they would not be preoccupied
By what is lost without anguish.

9. Nay, nor would they retire, except that their retirement
Is as though an obstacle between it and the final ingathering.