1. The darkness of misguidance grew dense, and its paths lay barren,
While guidance rose high, and its traits shone bright.

2. The religion of the Praiseworthy Muhammad revived
After his tears had flowed with blood.

3. It restored to Islam the prime of its youth,
And its firmness, through its own firmness.

4. It laid down its foundations and lengthened its pillars,
Building its walls higher and higher.

5. And it returned the face of truth bright and gleaming
Through its improvements, prayers, and connections.

6. When his party grew complacent and his supporters lagged
And their steps slowed down,

7. The fire of a resolute will was lit for the light of religion,
And its darkness yielded before it.

8. A king whose pastimes are wine cups and musical tones,
And whose joy is in the lines of poetry.

9. He is enticed by the gurgling of drinking and the clinking of goblets
More than by the piercing of the foe with blood.

10. His mornings are the wine of dissolution and his evenings
Make souls melt and passions boil.

11. A conquest whose pride filled the sky
And whose sweetness dripped on its branches.

12. It clothed Islam in shining white robes
And its aspects gleamed in the daylight.

13. Its clouds poured over the horizons,
And its breeze blew gently through.

14. Praise God for a night that encompassed it
And a day that adorned its hours.

15. It felled the enemy ranks,
As lightning bolts pierce through clouds.

16. They cast down their arms in surrender,
The steeds and spears of the knights.

17. To the seasoned Mureed, wrathful in battle,
To the God-supported Murtazi, valorous in conquest.

18. His enemies live straitened in their shackles,
While their grievances against him burn.

19. Their necks bowed submissively between the mountains
As his sharp blades sprouted from the bare rock.

20. Their tribes spread their tents around Aleppo
Like the adornments of spring scattered around.

21. A meadow whose flowers were sown by his charging steeds
And grew lush from the seeds they scattered.

22. Packed close on their saddles as dawn broke,
Their determination inspired by their morning draught.

23. Their spears did not let thorns grow
Before their tips bore fruit.

24. So let Islam praise what its ingrates reviled -
The orphaned sprouts nurtured by their lifeblood.

25. And that battle cry watered the best land -
You were its crop.

26. He assumed the throne but turned away from it,
While his curtains veiled his noble station.

27. The full moon suffers no loss though stars
Lie as dust beneath its orbit.

28. Each day his glory rises high in the sky
And climbs the ranks above.

29. His deeds shine in the morning light
As time narrates his story.

30. Where are those gone by who filled books with their ornamentations
Compared to the drops of this endless sea?

31. They exhausted themselves praising the ruins,
Which lacked any essence for them to capture.

32. Had they recounted some of his conquests,
His deeds would have mocked their efforts.

33. His spears stand over the lamps and candles
While the Pleiades circle below their tips.

34. Two lines of verse that kings cannot equal -
His actions inspire them and his vigilance animates them.

35. Their ambitions kept them from his path,
While his ambitions surpassed theirs.

36. They settled for home while he settled new lands,
Matching the stars with his encampments.

37. Had the dawn of his conquest shone on Al-Tabari,
His chronicles would have swelled with its narrations.

38. The cross was smashed by the strength of his resolve
As its wooden hands were severed.

39. And the Prince drank the humiliation of exile
In the dew that his betrayals drew.

40. So his nose was led by fate to death's halter
On the day his fortune ran out.

41. And he went moaning under the moans of regret
As the sighs of his anguish gasped their last.

42. A lion who seized his prey like a swooping eagle,
As the blades of his teeth sunk in.

43. He slept under the stars many a night,
Veiling his eyes though they shined for him.

44. While the sincere weep for him beneath,
When his jesters laugh, their tears flow.

45. The Nile walks with his head, though it was he
Who set the course of the two Niles.

46. Had he embraced the Giant on the day you raised him,
You'd have seen it bow down in submission.

47. Never before was its nose led by its ring,
Nor did its pride attempt to resist.

48. A beast who bellowed, so you silenced its roar,
And it surrendered beneath your swords.

49. When your black banner appeared above it
Your white victory reversed its banners.

50. And it saw your swords slicing like lightning bolts
As its ranks recoiled like curling worms.

51. It fled after drinking deep of your pond
And surrendered its protection money.

52. It left its churches and sextons to a looter
Who steals their chaste treasures.

53. A victor made invincible by God, his allies undying
And his enemies unable to survive.

54. Cast into the wilds, now beasts tear at his flesh,
While once his prey fled from him.

55. Today the castle granted you its keeps,
Surrendering its towering heights.

56. Tomorrow the beauties will be yours to enjoy,
Your daughters dividing his wives.

57. Your ambition trod the balconies underfoot
As their antiquities were tossed down.

58. Still this kingdom rises sublime,
Its fragments forever beyond reach.

59. Time's hand cannot fail you, so seek it below you,
Rushing or slow, as you desire.

60. You give life its life
And the spirits of verse their inspiration.