1. Oh, your foolishness, O difficult to be foolish!
Are you delirious or drunk and languid?

2. You have gathered evil and immoral people,
And Al-Sawalim and defects have afflicted you,

3. And you came to possess Oman through them,
Yet your view and pride is misguided.

4. Did God not create minds for you?
No, by God, you have no minds!

5. Don’t you know - and if you knew with certainty -
Your demons would not have flown with exultation -

6. That we are preventing it with highlands
Of might that never ceases nor disappears,

7. And every sharpened, angry, polished sword
Has blood dripping down its blade,

8. And every drawn sword that wanders
Across the lands, revolving and swinging,

9. And every courageous, firm, resolute horse
That neighs when the clashing excites him,

10. And every noble-spirited, proud, highborn man
For whom great affairs are made easy by resolve,

11. Who sacrifices himself though death is hatred,
When the coward renounces his own soul -

12. As if death upon the battlefield were a stairway
For him, or a protection from humiliation.

13. The birds continue shading his flags,
Standards that neither stray nor tilt.

14. By the Ancient House and the one who built it,
And what the Messenger brought for people,

15. And the pledged right hand of a free, noble man,
Of strong might who does what he says,

16. A right hand that I have never enjoyed
The presence of an ignoble or a slain coward.

17. The swords and highlands wear it down,
And the horses trample it with their hooves.

18. If I live, I will leave the women of ‘powerful’
To mourn him with prolonged wailing.

19. If I live, I will leave the men of ‘powerful’
Torn apart by tongues and teeth.

20. If I survive, I will leave the daughters of ‘powerful’
Permitted to loose their hair and wail.

21. And I will return triumphant with prisoners from them,
Whose eyelids have been blackened by sleeplessness.

22. And I will leave every ‘powerful’ one in the realms,
Humbled - with no humbled one like him.

23. Then I will leave every proud man of any people,
Humbled, while the humbled one covets him.

24. The settlements and the deserts have known,
As well as the people of tents and settled abodes,

25. That I pierce empires with spears
And honor those who give and those who withhold.

26. One noble of deed, praised of hand,
Loyal, neither treacherous nor betraying trust,

27. Firm of alliance - a Taghlibi through and through Whom honorable glory makes mention.
Courageous, whom no shuddering seizes

28. When the craven is seized by retreat.
Open-handed, whom no miserliness inclines

29. When the generous one is inclined by stinginess,
I loved horses and battle as a child,

30. And spending wealth though the miser begrudges it.