1. Greetings to Egypt, even if I lived forever
I would always be a Muslim

2. In a homeland, if one had to choose a homeland
None on earth would be more righteous and generous

3. The sweetness of its Nile flowed through its people
Pouring forth, so much so water and bounty become indistinguishable

4. Justice and the Nile flow in it
And so it is on the verge of no eye beholding poverty

5. It has become the refuge of the East in its entirety
So if it is afflicted with injustice, it comes oppressed

6. It fixed what was corrupt of its affairs
And refined what was flawed and damaged

7. Thus the lands of justice make its springs sweet
And rise to civilization and glory as one

8. But darkness profits nothing but loss
And humiliation, nothing but regret and remorse

9. My sister Syria, welcome the young man yours
Whose fate wished he become an orphan

10. I have taken you as a mother, and came to you bereft
Casting before your feet my heart, mind and bounty

11. And he for whom Egypt is as a mother
Deserves to bleed for her sake

12. I will unsheathe thoughts that were once restrained
And unleash speech that was once muzzled

13. And stab the heart of the stubborn until it softens for me
And strike the throne of ignorance until it crumbles

14. Perhaps my poetry will benefit the people, and hopefully
It will be a translator for the people of the East

15. It is but an arrow of thought I have loosed
If it strikes true, that is bounty enough for me

16. I will tread the heights of great men, conversing
With their greatest who time has made greatest

17. I will kiss that earth with manners
And prostrate before it, humble and merciful

18. And ask those in it about the East, will it
Have a revival, that the souls might speak

19. I yearn for the sorrowful East and its people
And cry for the scattering of its peoples blood

20. And I mourn the intelligence there laid waste
And mourn the ruins there left demolished

21. And I remember Baghdad, and bend in sorrow
And remember Harun, and weep in agony

22. And lament a glory that shone in the East
That passed away and the East turned blackest black

23. With whispers I return to Egypt and a fog disperses
That gathered upon my carefree heart

24. I hope through it the East will return and be reborn
And I hope through it the East will have goodness and grace

25. The time has come for truth between us
And for blindness to clear from our vision

26. Oh brothers, do not make religion a divider
Religion is but earth's tie to the heavens

27. We are but part of this earth, who are we
To take it upon ourselves to undo what God has bound?

28. Do not listen to a priest in a cassock
Nor heed a shaykh in turban speaking ill

29. Let this tongue that gathers us be enough
Christian and Muslim alike joined to it