1. The boldness of the generous is to dare great deeds,
Seeking glory or overcoming adversities.

2. None who feared the shock of impact was granted sublime heights -
Rather, he let go the reins heedless of unsheathed swords.

3. What clarity was there save after confusion?
What relief appeared save after straits?

4. Lofty ambition beholds the goal,
Then strives toward it, heedless of the severity of resolves.

5. No flock took wing without reaching the cause of ascension;
No summons for help was answered save by unsheathed swords.

6. Not alive is he who walks among the vile;
Nor dead is he who perishes in noble deeds.

7. People are but travelers, amongst whom
Are men whose traces endure like landmarks.

8. With might and insightful vision;
Shaking of the soul and breadth of mercy.

9. Fortunes of perfection that manifest wondrous signs,
In the mirror of a person not absent from the worlds.

10. A man cannot choose but for his own soul,
For choosing is the act of a Merciful Ordainer.

11. Greatest in merit is he who leads by natural strength,
Thus leading the strongest by innate precedence.

12. You see the spheres encompass a king like Joseph,
From mountains that surpass all others in height.

13. None rivals a king who laid its foundations in events,
Nor equals a war he stirred up in epics.

14. He revealed the house of justice amongst turbulent chaos,
With a sword that flows with the blood of brigands.

15. Would that I ransom you, erected of your religion,
And sacrifice myself to you, demolition of your enemies!

16. You it was who awakened the party of Muhammad to jihad while they slept,
You fought for the faith, not for resentments,

17. And stood guard for God’s good pleasure, not for spoils.
I find you will always strike thus,

18. Wherever the protective domes of God collapse.
In the passes of Nuqya Sih

19. Roar battle cries like the waves of a surging sea assailing mountains.
How did your tents find rest since

20. You roamed the land like ships amidst tumultuous seas?
Naught remains but a contest of swords,

21. And no encounter save a rivaling of resolves.
No glory save leaping to the fore,

22. No poles save those defending a bombardment.
Your abode and the heroes about it are a place

23. Of joyful life when faced with sources of sorrows.
For you sit therein, when others rush madly,

24. Upon a throne of steadfastness, calm in stance.
And you stand among them, when they rebel tyrannically,

25. A towering hero, sublime in attributes.
You are the right-guided victorious king,

26. Executing, envisioning the violent onslaughts of war to be kindnesses.
Do grasshoppers love you or are you

27. Their lover, in an eternal union of two lovers?
A winter entertaining its visitor - we still see

28. In the evening and dawn the ever-present call to prayer.
You waged war until it was said, “He cannot be reconciled,”

29. And crusaded until it was said, “He does not sleep.”
You made Rome tremble when you rent the Franks asunder,

30. Leaving them scattered ruins in torrents of defeat.
You crushed them atop the hills as though they were mist

31. Dispelled by gusts of wind dispersing and crushing.
You exhausted them until you love to meet them surrendering,

32. While they, true to their word, refrained from hostility.
They betrayed, they failed, they regretted and blamed each other,

33. Saying, “Saladin’s victories exposed our crimes.”
And so they confined within the corners of churches an image of you,

34. Believing in it like believing in icons.
Priest and layman extol it in their prayers,

35. While the literate write it as a healing amulet.
It hastens just deserts by imitation,

36. So blessed is the patient and misery to the sinner!
An honorable free man may corrupt his worthy associate,

37. And power of mind may be weakened by delusions.
If unfair criticism comes from a fool to one rightly-guided,

38. He may imagine wisdom in the criticism of a blamer.
I wonder at one who marvels at himself

39. While he possesses much that shares the attributes of blamers.
He sees the essence of his noble soul and is elated,

40. While oblivious to attributes inherent in his physical being.
Obligatory debts that require

41. The loss of lifetimes amidst financial dues.
While all are deluded by love of their lives,

42. Tempted by insignificant beauty toward misery.
A collective wealth of no benefit,

43. Like pleasure - conditional upon pain.
It overflows but cannot contain; out of ostentation,

44. It exposes one to a deceiver or a fraud.
Whoever understands this world realizes

45. It is a wary wakefulness and a fleeting dream.
God give success to ones striving in obedience

46. To restore justice or defeat oppression.
Your sword will open the gates of Jerusalem,

47. Unlocking the shackles of true guidance, closing the doors of sin.
You ruled over opposites, brooking no dissent,

48. And brought calm to the clamor of turbulent chaos.
You freed the Turks to course through the lands,

49. While slaughtering in droves the wicked shards.
On a morn when you smashed the Byzantines

50. With a yellow hammer, none of their troops survived the onslaught.
As they walked bowed like sand dunes,

51. Or helpless ruins upon Akka’s hillaccumulated like creeping plants.
And like bees whose disasters

52. Descend upon them, they tumbled from the hill in dread.
As though the Akka hill were their mizar,

53. Which wild creatures circle warily.
So flocks of them came to it numerously

54. But increased them in nothing but further loss.
They split open the navels of their pregnant ships,

55. Which poured out guts bursting with hidden warriors,
Streaming from great Rome, waves frothing with cauldrons.

56. They were shocked by your slave girls and pillows,
Melting before needles that pierce as lancets.

57. The green brocade was dyed red
By their weeping blood shedding ubiquitous drops.

58. Had the meadows sown their souls, they would have bloomed
With the blood spilt therein from their skulls and thickets.

59. Every heart is watered by sapless branches,
And the eye flows with a slicing sword.

60. The hooves of your horsemen trampled nobles,
And the heads of their chiefs crushed their skulls.

61. Thus may pure words garland my ode
To one like Joseph, a sovereign knowing all things:

62. A youth whose thoughts hurl meteors
To split the gloom of deep riddles.

63. Gentle poetry fears his gentle nature
As despair fears him who defeats all woes.

64. Descriptions borrow the elegance of his qualities,
As the sky borrows its light and humidity from clouds.

65. His dreamlike beauty makes houris jealous -
An envy forbidden to those of chaste faith.

66. His preference flows smoothly as though
It were the mouth of a radiant full moon.

67. Meanings like the dazzle of magic in a perceptive eye’s necklace,
And words like the sparkle of gold in a strung ode.

68. He rose above the nadir of poetry to the zenith
Of wisdom, while the confused poet roams perplexed.

69. His legacy will make forgotten the tales of past poets,
Shedding proliferating light through the generations.

70. Just as this matter has spread amongst mankind,
Circling through Arabs and Persians.

71. I consider my praise of him an obligation,
Avoiding praise of another, like avoiding sin.

72. Not pretentiousness, but gratitude of one thankful
For his legacy, and supportive of one resolute.

73. O best community following the best religion!
He defends it against every obstinate adversary.

74. Grasp God’s cord, seeking refuge in it,
For none save He can give victory's refuge.

75. Hold fast to the One who gave you what you sought
And will give you what you hope for in future days.

76. I sent her with yearning leading the way
To the assembly wherein is my hope, every newcomer.

77. Far-reaching, blessed Eden, hostile to opponents,
Prosperous, echoing the call of one gone astray.

78. Greetings upon that station by which
The pillars of supreme favors were erected.