1. My existence transcends my body,
My spirit, mind, creed and mission.

2. My will is absolute, rising
Above the absolute condition.

3. Of essence or of attribute,
Part or whole, my knowledge holds

4. What none can know but one who, like me
Has never ceased to be the same.

5. Were inner sight errors relieved
Of those whose creed knots unravel,

6. Their knowledge from my knowledge sea
Would be a dewdrop to the rain.

7. Al-Khidr's knowledge to my knowledge
Is but as Moses' thirst relented.

8. Of news to come I am the hoopoe
To people of an age long past.

9.
I say, and what I say I am,

10. And over what I say and am,
God is the Everlasting Stand,

11. Unlikened and matchless in might.
I am that Stand since I stood up

12. From bearing burdens of made forms.
I've stripped myself of rule and realm,

13. Of knowledge and of ignorance,
Of here and where, above, below,

14. My right was gone with fictive stuff.
I've washed my face of accident

15. With washing beyond washing's need.
Indeed, I am not something made

16. Or fed on bread and water, nay,
Nor am I made who makes and acts,

17. Or deeds and works and motions has.
Nor am I in God's prophets one,

18. Or of the messengers He sent.
I am not Jesus or Mahdi

19. Who guides men to the roads of life.
With me the minds of men are lost

20. Unsure of what I am in root.
I am the Arab, India's own,

21. The Roman and the Greek, Most High!
I am the worlds that turned by me,

22. The heavens that for me were brought.
The angels know me and long

23. For me with hope of my regard.
I am the famed throughout the world

24. Indeed, I am not mortal man
Nor of that kind begot at all.

25. Not jinn nor angel ranks know me.
Do comprehend me as I tell!

26. I have no father, mother, son,
No folk, nor people are my own.

27. I am not shaykh, nor youth nor sage.
No child, nor infant in the womb,

28. But absolutely free am I,
While all are bound as slaves to doom.

29. Junayd does not know my place
That's known to me, nor Shibli's ken.

30. None is within my world but me.
So cease, my friend, cease me from men!

31. "Abd al-Ghani" is not my name,
As this appearance does compel.

32. But in the world of vanished forms
I walk, my friend, with measured step.

33. So you who seek me in this world,
My love soliciting, attend!

34. Disrobe, renounce, leave clothes and shoes,
Be pure without a grain of dross.

35. Be meadow where no thistles grow,
Be wine undrunk from any cup,

36. Be sun aloft without a shade,
Cut loose from loves and hold my cord,

37. Be patient, persevere, and learn,
Musk is not like a fading rose,

38. Nor certainty's true right as just
Halves, justice, straightness of the scales.

39. Like a clear eye's or like the heart
Of certainty's unerring sight.

40. Shut out all others, strive, unseal
My secret and draw forth its light.

41. God's blessing from my heart on mine
Without division or divorce

42. On Taha, God's messenger,
The light of duty and grace's course,

43. As long as cloud banks trail their skirts
Across the sky with trailing showers.