1. You reminded me of a soul yearning for inclusion,
You ignited my embers and stirred my ardour.

2. I wish I knew, O son of the Wise One, if you would bring closer,
As excess of hope and expectation,

3. After a long absence with no letter
Describing the condition or a messenger's report,

4. What thing distracted you from the secret of one who saw
And lived in its shade, sheltered.

5. Is it disdain for idle talk of favours
That you find reprehensible, though plentiful?

6. You were not the stirrings of the lowly, nor your spirit
For bearing hardship and drudgery.

7. Why then did you choose one with a torn cloak
At the return of the feeble, of little acceptance?

8. If you visit him, you’ll find him of baser morals than
The libertines, and weaker of resolution than the indolent.

9. A sponger, guzzling, whose morning draught brought no joy
But pleading and scrounging all day.

10. And if Ibn Nasr comes to visit,
He leaves with little good.

11. And so too the obsequious sycophant, when he latches
Onto the grudging, stingy man.

12. Claiming ancestry, which, if true one day,
Would make him servant of Abul Hawl.

13. Word reached me of him, and I have no doubt
Of his station, far below Kuthayyir and Jamil.

14. Woe to him, saying what corrupts the mind
And claiming understanding and learning!

15. So if people dispute the meaning
Of an explicit or ambiguous verse of the Criterion,

16. He says “This is for us – we unlocked
Its mystery for the questioner and respondent.”

17. Did the Asma’i strike them, O Command
Or were they sired by the seed of Khalil?

18. Have I not seen them to be naught but sons
Of a shabby old man, useless and feeble,

19. Whose sum of knowledge is delving into the
Doings of his parents and their offspring?