إني سمعت كلاماً ليس يدريه

إلا الذي سمع القرآن من فيه

Indeed, I heard words whose meaning no one knows

except the one who heard the Qur’an from His mouth.

هو الرسول الذي من جاء يطلبه

بعقله فبهذا القدر أكفيه

He is the Messenger; whoever comes seeking him

through reason—with this much I shall suffice him.

إني رأيتُ له نوراً يضيء به

أهل السماءِ إذا عين توفيه

I saw that he possessed a light by which

the inhabitants of heaven shine—when an eye renders him,

من الضياءِ الذي فيها حقيقته

وحقه وسوى هذا يعفيه

from the radiance in which his reality resides,

the due that is his; and what lies beyond this excuses him.

من كان أمرضَه فكر فإنَّ له

ربّاً يعافيه إيماناً ويشفيه

Whoever has been sickened by thought has

a Lord who restores him through faith and heals him.

ما كان أثبته الإيمان من شبهٍ

بالله جاءَ دليلُ الشرعِ ينفيه

Whatever likeness to God faith had affirmed,

the proof of revealed law came to negate.

والعقلُ أيضاً له رِدء يصدقه

في قوله فهو برٌّ في تحفيه

Reason, too, has a rebuttal encircling it

in what it says, though it is devoted to honoring Him.

الله يشقي فؤادي إذ رأى جسدي

عين الصَّدى وهو يبكي في تشفيه

God makes my heart suffer when it beholds my body,

the very essence of estrangement, while it weeps in seeking its own relief,

لصحبةٍ سلفت ما بين قالبه

وبينه وهو أمر فيه ما فيه

for companionship once shared between the body’s frame

and the heart—an affair fraught with all it contains.

لقد تنازعَ فيه الحاكمان معاً

فالشرعُ يظهره والطبع يخفيه

The two arbiters have indeed contended over it together:

revealed law manifests it, while natural disposition conceals it.