1. Oh! Is my tongue today obedient to my thoughts,
If I cast gratitude and praise as supporters?

2. And have words in poetry any help for wishes,
If ingenuity produced them for a poet?

3. And would that my poetry, would it consider my means,
Consider, if I extended it with efforts?

4. And have I from my eloquence an assistant,
With wonderful speech in brilliant meanings?

5. To convey my soul today in gratitude its share,
And ascend to its limits without falling short?

6. Whoever does not give thanks to people, was not
To the Beneficence of the Lord of men ever grateful.

7. And can I give thanks, fulfill its right,
Standing to the ordainment from Him now present?

8. Yet I have increased upon the servant blessings
Whose number overwhelms composers and writers alike.

9. And can one reach the goals who spent his night
Trying to count the gushing rain torrents?

10. The hands He opened were generous hands
That conferred upon the river valleys the rain showers.

11. With them the Mother of countries took pride and her
Sons summoned up ancestral courage and zeal.

12. And when she extended a hand to a goal, she extended
With God's success clearly manifest.

13. He has the determination for every matter unto the heights,
Beyond which the furthest sight cannot gaze.

14. He protected it from the days against their slings and arrows,
So among them injustice has no visiting rights.

15. And the light of justice illuminated all its countries,
No darkness of injustice in them has residence.

16. When the foundation of a kingdom on justice is erected,
It remains for ages among the brilliant stars.

17. And the King has girded his loins in Egypt with piety,
And with religion, her virtuous and honorable lord.

18. And he made thereby of his streaming generosity blessings flow,
Drawing at their heels rain‐laden clouds.

19. Noble, generous, overflowing favor, a paragon
In his deeds of generous and excellent origin.

20. Passionate for earning praise, glory, and the most high,
For spending expectations, and founding monuments.

21. When a people become drunk with cups
Whirling among the hands white as gazelles.

22. For his pleasure is to take action,
To bestow favors and revive what is lost.

23. And if he sleeps unaware of the people's affairs,
He pastures his folk with an eye awake.

24. Seeing into the reality of the matter, not led astray,
Even if the inward meaning is hid from appearances.

25. My Lord I call being near, and You are near me,
Present, with none absent like one present.

26. I will thank for Your blessings what I can,
Though I cannot thank for them all.

27. I will accomplish the utmost effort—and effort is the goal,
Beyond which there is only seeking excuses.

28. I will pray in private, sincerely to God,
One whom he calls is no loser on the Day.

29. You have followed grace after grace upon me
From Your gifts that answer my poverty.

30. I found blessing upon the faithful servant from You
With streams linked to their sources.

31. No sooner do they cease, but You link them
With their like, on and on without end.

32. You have delivered us from the clutch of misfortune,
Though it bared its fangs of granite at our throats.

33. Adversity donned danger after danger
Of ordeals not striking our thoughts.

34. So You inspired what was latent
Of truth to reveal it by light of conscience.

35. Insight filled by God in his heart,
With light of guidance treasured in secret thoughts.

36. Without You we would be morsels in the jaws of betrayal,
Prey for a fang concealed in deadly fights.

37. Misfortunes would swoop down on us and gorge
On every hidden and visible weakness.

38. But You held them back from us, cutting them short,
Powerless, claw‐tipped without might.

39. And You taught us how to rise up lofty,
And ascend the steps of glorious signs.

40. And how the taste of glory is sweet, and to reap
The fruits of sublime deeds from thriving roots.

41. You made hopes our steeds to race their herd
Tamely, as wishes and thoughts guided.

42. When we craved from the progeny of honor a place,
Too lofty for our vision's reach.

43. You favored with higher than it, then graced it
With another, loftier, then one still loftier.

44. So You remain forever beautiful to the world, and to
Creation, as Islam's light for sight.