Sol 5.6

  1. What ails my heart, its thoughts divided,

    as though it had been packed with a burning ember?

  2. Calamities of time have struck me

    that my noble patience could not bear.

  3. My eye’s tears for the loss of Hayyan and Hayyā—

    —n, another Hayyan, and the two Naḍrs still flow.

  4. Did they draw their waters from the clouds,

    or were they fed by the brimming seas?

  5. Five through whom their homes once shone

    have been laid beneath the darkness of stones.

  6. She was devoted to the Qur’an, grammar, and calligraphy,

    and in calligraphy surpassed all maidens.

  7. She cultivated Hadith through listening and transcription,

    and transmitted a body of traditions:

  8. the Musnad of al-Dārimī and the Musnad of ʿAbd,

    and the two Ṣaḥīḥs—Muslim and al-Bukhārī—

  9. and al-Nasāʾī and al-Ṭabarānī’s Compendium,

    then half of the Compendium of the great masters.

  10. She also journeyed to Mecca, where

    she heard from our righteous shaykhs.

  11. She compiled forty reports from forty teachers,

    having written them down from eminent learned masters.

  12. Even in her fatal illness, she recited them for us to hear

    and granted authorization to a company of those present.

  13. Then she departed when God decreed her end,

    amid praise and fragrant remembrance.

  14. After that I was stricken by my loss of

    Umm Hayyan, the choicest of the good.

  15. She was my solace in loneliness and exile,

    in sleep and waking, and on my journeys;

  16. my intimate companion in travel and at home,

    and my fellow pilgrim in Hajj and ʿumrah.

  17. I had hoped that she would live and remain,

    attending me gently whenever I fell ill.

  18. She was not merely a wife, but like a mother,

    while I was like her son, the littlest of little ones.

  19. She was the soul within my breast; now she is gone,

    and my life has become like a borrowed robe.

  20. She prayed to God that she might die swiftly,

    during my lifetime, in dignity and seclusion.

  21. So God answered her prayer,

    and she met her death, bound for the eternal abode.

  22. May God water her grave with rain that never ravages

    and bestow upon her a steady, copious downpour.

Sol 5.6