1. Alas! Who is there whose soul hath not been led astray by passion?
When I say it has turned from ignorance, that is it wont.

2. It suffices a man for evil that he neglects his soul,
While it has the power to attain all it desires.

3. I renounced the world, yet still I yearn for it.
Ardently do I see that yearning mingled with my renunciation.

4. And I accustomed my soul to a practice and persisted in it.
I see it difficult indeed that I should abandon my practice.

5. A will to enter in and a deficient reason
And were my reason sound my will too would be sound.

6. And were my stock good its fruit too would be good.
And were my inward part revealed my outward would be sound.

7. O soul, the world is no abode for those who love it.
Leave it for folk to whom is its return.

8. Alas! Seldom do souls cleave to their people
When the fates visit them and depart.

9. Alas! Every soul whose life is prolonged in delusion
Dies, though it be averse from death. Alas! Whither is he whom sport and youth have left

10. And the generations that flourished before and are dead?
It is as though I had never been when I am in the tomb,

11. And my pillow is crumbling bones and skull.
And I have none to shelter with save Him whose thrall I am,

12. In Allah my Lord is my misery and my happiness.