1. God is greatest, victory and triumph came
And safety, prosperity when fate lent a hand

2. The meadow of wishes turned green, it is thrilled
As if the green dragon sailed through it

3. The auspicious gathering’s morning shone
With a radiant rise that makes eyelids roll back

4. I mean the minister whose ministry is a glory
That the high offices take pride in

5. The ministry had a constitution rendered alive
When he saw it as it lay dying

6. Still the divine aid accompanies him
For the sovereign’s and Islam’s victory

7. Justice he always spreads in his office
The law commands and the sword waits

8. And right transcends all disputes
Knowledge is respected and money scorned

9. He who plants justice reaps victory assuredly
And justice gives fruit that no trees can give

10. His veneration of knowledge is out of merit and cognition
None venerated knowledge but who had insight

11. Many stars in the sky have long set
And knowledge has stars that never cease shining

12. A patience that knows no fatigue, a thought that nothing bounds
A speech that never rambles, a glory that nothing mars

13. The gnosis his cognizance brought forth
Though his breast is an ocean, his words are pearls

14. His words and the water’s clarity, between them
Is intermixture, like the meadow’s breeze at dawn

15. His script is entwined with magic spells
As the gazelle’s eyelid is with the wide-eyed houri’s

16. None can look away from what he writes and dictates
Neither hearing nor sight can perceive

17. He hides his virtues while ostentation displays them
As flowers spread fragrance from their buds

18. Glories his modesty cannot conceal
And the dawn has an emergence that cannot be veiled

19. Were I to detail the virtues in his biography
That would be long, this brief sketch must suffice

20. If his enemies read his works, they would break
Their stiff necks in fear of his power

21. Every sense makes the addressed heart
Submit in awe, split open and melt

22. The impregnable fortress shook with fright of his might
Horrified ere the threat reached its keep

23. They let him pass, hiding their bells, escaping
Lest the hawk’s screeching expose the partridges’ cackling

24. Qa’dan and his band found excuses, fleeing
As from an enraged lion set to tear them to pieces

25. His eyelid quivers, and the abode flees
Yearning for the darkness of his fearsome sword’s home

26. Indeed his reputation warned the band
Would that fools be deterred without the sword!

27. They feared each other when he toured their land
In coats of mail – had they prayed instead of yelled!

28. When his phantom crossed their minds
It melted their bitterness and freed the bitterest

29. They took fright and fled to their waters
Not even the wild cows and donkeys stayed

30. One takes refuge at a mound’s sanctuary
Another behind rocks makes his den

31. But for the deserts that protected them
They would never have escaped – hellfire awaits!

32. Whether they show patience or flee, humiliation
Whether they appear or disappear, murder

33. Whether buried or not, the rebels are dead
While the loyalists paid tribute and flourished

34. The clan of Harb fought him, so he guided them
To a death from which no breasts escaped

35. Their zeal in the waste was thrown down
As fruit drops from its branches

36. Until their valley flowed with red blood
And every ravine gushed with turbid tears

37. Hell visited them without delay in this world
For the sins they committed and crimes they perpetrated

38. They fortified themselves in lofty mountains
But their shelters did not avail them, nor their caution

39. Fear concealed them, and false security exposed them –
Whether absent or present, they sought no help

40. The route to the Sacrosanct House was arduous
The matter fully dangerous and fraught with perils

41. That even to circle it in the imagination
Seemed impossible – vain their hopes, rather they lost

42. But God entrusted the pilgrimage to al-Hajjaj
Who feared no danger and took no precautions

43. He protected them with legions filled with resolve
Whose eyes kohl wakefulness always lined

44. He provisioned them from the household’s sea
Conveyed on ships, with no raft or palms to bear them

45. By the wells, water in the desert
Poured from their mouths like pouring cloud

46. Say to the nomads – how many Byzantines and Persians
Attempted to stand up to him? But none prevailed!

47. Do not be fooled if the home is far
No distance to the generous when perils come near!

48. There is no stranger – the most generous remembers
In his titles strangers – and titles signify meaning!

49. His steeds, forever manacled
So that neither conjecture can reach their course nor sight

50. They flow like the sea, but are always
Fires of war inflamed against the foe

51. Their reins blame if they slackened during raids
And steeds blame their riders as custom dictates

52. Their forelocks are too proud to be beside him
Their brows envy the cheeks of gazelle and onager

53. From every perspective, when his gaze falls on them
Their stones are cleft, and their jewelry split

54. When sweat flows from their flanks
Sparks nearly fly from their eyelids

55. He prepared a heart that knows no fear for war
And extended ambition limitless as the sky for glory

56. Clashing lances and roaring lion delight him
In battle – no cup or lute can compare

57. If you saw the zebras soaring one day
Like balls rebounding in their polo field

58. The lightning underneath them – but they were horses
The lion in the saddle – but he was human

59. He would not brandish the sword in speeches appealing for it
Save for a battle where history would marvel at his feats

60. A smiling sword when they wept in despair
As if their blood scurried on its blade

61. If not for the innate disposition to injustice
Scabbards would not be blue or made of Indian steel

62. So the verse revealed about iron explains the rule:
Its folds contain wisdom availing and fair

63. How many fools did he treat gently? He repaid
Their ignorance with forbearance – and the forbearing prevail

64. A sea of calmness guided by knowledge
And the sea rises though of its nature is no bitterness

65. My fetters forged of praise not steel awaited him
Though fetters await beyond praise, one cannot equal

66. My writing outstanding by it, the sun raised over
The land of disgrace shadows that his line adorned

67. For gratitude, I wrought a necklace that almost withered
For paucity of ideas, not sincerity’s lack

68. I do not praise without witnessing
And experience proves what experience cannot prove

69. No glory in robes of woven gold
The raiment of the noble is what thought weaves

70. Still mercy for him spreads after prayers invoked
In every hemisphere – scent dispersed by musk