1. Have you not seen how I and misfortunes are closely bound,
With changes in fortune that sway the youth back and forth?

2. I exchanged the darkness of Egypt, but in it
There was no substitute I approved or knew well.

3. Its people speak to me in words
Part of which I do not approve or recognize.

4. And they do not understand my words, as though I
Were wielding the blades of swords clumsily.

5. If you wish to encounter a man whose mother did not nurture him well
And he ignorantly claims that lack of nurture ennobles him,

6. And whose heart does not know God though he acts piously,
While a group pretends that he is most scrupulous,

7. They have stripped themselves of all virtues except greed;
In that they all fail and transgress.

8. The truest of them in speech is a liar,
And the most faithful of them to a promise is one who breaks it.

9. God has not blessed the times with prosperity,
Nor has the rain's Benefactor ceased being deflected from them.

10. It is a land that harms the free man in it
And censures the moderate, restrained Muslim.

11. So escape from it, again and again, to a town
Where what you bring is honored and you are treated hospitably,

12. With a band of your loyal kinfolk nearby
Brought close to you through kinship and made sympathetic.

13. When a powerful man wrongs you through injustice,
That is refused by swords and poisoned blades unsheathed.

14. To God I complain of the darkness we suffer,
And in God there is enough to avenge the wronged and bring justice.

15. The governors have defrauded us from every side,
While the fraudulent official cannot be opposed.

16. In Kufa we have a ruler of our prayers
Oppressive, tyrannical, manifestly corrupt.

17. And a judge weak in patience and sense, ignorant,
Who blocks the clear truth and swerves.

18. He raids our money and estates,
And the judge makes him happy with them and shelters him.

19. So if the governor has lined up false witnesses against us,
They are deemed honest by our judge, manufactured as they are.

20. Our proof is never accepted by him,
While our witness is deliberately rendered useless.

21. We fled to the judge out of fear of others,
But the fear of the judge turned out to be greater.

22. And over us in Babylon are two governors;
Partners in crime, no good in them, base.

23. There is nothing in them but the bringing of disgrace—
The worst, whether revealed or concealed.

24. They treat us in a way no messenger brought
Or revelation from God recognized.

25. Nor did the Commander of the Faithful instruct them,
For your deputy fears God more and is more just.

26. They follow none but the rebellion of Bukht Nasr;
Indeed they have both relapsed into their original wickedness.

27. Am I to wonder at 'Amr, that he became the governor,
When the latter is more wondrous in Ibn al-Nabitah's son?

28. There is nothing in them but a return to the wickedness of their origin,
Nothing in them but swearing by it as they relapse.

29. So who will convey to the Commander a message for me,
As finely constructed as speech can be arranged?

30. That the two governors have done what, had you known it,
Would have made you recoil from the two governors in condemnation:

31. They have burdened the people of the estates with unbearable costs
Encompassing the yields of the estates and sweeping them away.

32. Transgressors of evil—evil has bound itself to them—
As the waterskin is bound up full by the straps.

33. Whenever they descend upon a village, its good fortune departs,
And its day darkens like an eclipsed planet.

34. And a gang of thugs—God protect us from them!—
Roam about our yields acting as they please.

35. Whenever they try to wring out a dirham from its place,
A tour of duty is imposed on arms and hollow backs.

36. And a tax collector who has already lived off our rightful due
Is imposed upon our wealth and given extra.

37. When the yields approach, he can be seen
Beating the faces of the peasants and exposing them.

38. And he deliberately angers himself so we'll fear him,
And we appeasers circle around him soothing and soothing.

39. But appeasement will not work without a bribe
That wards off some of what we are behind on.

40. For the rations of the governors of districts are a sunna upon us—
What we fear—every month of the year.

41. If they descend upon us one day, our chickens
Are slaughtered in haste, force-fed as they are.

42. And our sorcerers come forth from us by daybreak,
And the two dirhams of each known man are exacted by oath.

43. The butcher has standards for slaughtering,
So let not his status be envied for what he refrains from.

44. And in opening the doors of the threshing floors there is mutilation
Imposed on us—and injustice from what is imposed.

45. And no band of extortionists has left us;
They attack us with torture and violence.

46. And when the yields arrived, our hearts said:
We are sick to death of the yields and their squandering.

47. They divided our food with fraudulent measures,
And their bushel within was a folded-up basket.

48. Then they came back at us taking deductions,
So look, you who saw our vineyards, how they are leveled!

49. The measurer took many times his wage
Except for some chaff that was on the ground, which was doubled.

50. So nothing remains for the farmer but bits of straw—
He keeps standing over it moaning with longing.

51. And a produce collector who is given his contracted portion of the bushel,
Else the document is thrown in his face.

52. And for the money-changing scoundrel there are seventy-five in thousands—
Willful exactions piled up on us.

53. And corrupt scribes—if you ask them to account
And do not proffer the filth of your money, they delay.

54. The governor of Futuh's conquests levies taxes on us,
Upbraiding late payment and using violence.

55. When we pay the tax due him,
He returns to demand another, doubling it.

56. We are nothing but a pack animal to Ibn al-Fath,
Loaded with the burdens of vile men and branded.

57. The governor of the environs collects our alms tax
While among the riffraff are those unknown.

58. He gives alms to the unbelievers in God—a sunna
Violating what a messenger and scripture prescribe.

59. And he imposes the jizya tax on those who do not deny God,
Which is manifest, evident oppression.

60. His only excuse is his reliance for judgment
On partisan affairs driving him into transgression.

61. You see him in his shop shifting about
Spying on whoever comes to him and taking note.

62. A clown—when there is quarreling between us
And in our peace binding up his belly fat.

63. He judges without knowing, rules without knowing,
Like the blind at night groping randomly.

64. When he raises the banners and his shadow shakes,
And the vast land quakes with him,

65. The caravans of Bakr ibn Wa'il are miserable,
Drenched by the stirring ladle of thick pouring.

66. No one who descended on them did God spare,
Their practice being not to slaughter but to fatten.

67. Rather they have a stroll in the wide yard of the house
That weighs down its budget however lightened.

68. Nothing remains in the larder after it is emptied
Of food but dry crumbs clutched tight.

69. It cries out to the Commander of the Faithful for help
Against wrong, aggression—while tears flow.

70. Though the Commander of the Faithful is far away,
His deputy Isaac—my soul his ransom—is near enough to embrace and shelter us.

71. May God let you rescue from us a remainder
Nearly finished off by woes and hardship.

72. And do not let our governors escape punishment
Or return what they have plundered and embezzled.

73. For the Merciful has judged the likes of them
And the Book's clarifying verses have distinguished it:

74. That they be killed, crucified, or dismembered;
Acting contrarily, exiled in the land to be made examples.

75. That is disgrace in life and thereafter,
Lasting mighty torment, ever unrelieved.