1. How long will there be frivolity and dear friends who have departed,
O you who is busy with the fleeting pleasures of life?

2. How many cups of separation have made you drink bitterness,
So the eye weeps while the heart blazes?

3. And how you have yearned for a beloved you were attached to,
And bosom friends whose hearts were intimate.

4. They have travelled a journey from which there is no return,
In it - so there is no hope of their coming back.

5. And they have replaced us with the dwelling of an ugly grave,
Leaving us while the tears of the eye are pouring down.

6. And their beauty has become ugliness, their company solitude,
Their joy slumbering, continuous sorrow.

7. So speech is sealed, the eyelid closed,
The color effaced, the union severed.

8. The ear is deaf, the leg still,
The hand limp, all are defeated.

9. O you whose perfect beauty has waned,
And its splendor confounded all stratagems.

10. Something mighty has confounded it, inexorable,
Decreed by Allah, and man must endure.

11. It is fitting for the eye to weep at parting with
Dear ones for whom I have no substitute.

12. They left my heart depressed with separation, and
Took up residence in a gloomy, contemptible grave.

13. Consider, for the boon of life passes,
And work for an everlasting kingdom that does not pass.

14. For man takes no pleasure in family or wealth,
Nothing avails but knowledge and righteous deeds.

15. After her death, a wife finds a replacement,
And wealth perforce passes from you to another.

16. A daughter walks to her husband, leaving you,
And a son remains for a time, then is busy.

17. By Allah, O traveller to the beloved, ask
News of them, and convey greetings when you arrive.

18. And say to them: We are captives of sorrow without you,
And soon we will be journeying to join you.