Sol 5.6

  1. The adornment of knowledge is worship, humility, and renunciation.

    So act upon your knowledge, and each day you will grow.

  2. Fear God, if you desire joy and happiness;

    leave people and their censure—

  3. they are creatures of habit.

    Each has come to follow it, casting his reins into its hands.

  4. Their concern is “he said” and “it was said”—most of them, rabble and leaders alike.

    So withdraw from them and shun them; then strive earnestly in your resolve.

  5. Keep God alone as your companion, and leave His servants be.

    Be annihilated to all but God,

  6. and make the unseen a witnessed presence.

    Truly accept what has been decreed,

  7. and whatever the Lord has willed.

    Beware the world and leave it;

  8. wretched is he who makes it his desire.

    It has blinded heart and mind,

  9. and made him miss the path of guidance.

    He has lost this world and the next,

  10. and gathered into himself the greatest folly.

    How rare indeed is his cure,

  11. and whatever might mend his corruption.

    Blessed is the servant who takes no delight in a night of sleep there,

  12. but reflects on its passing—and the passing of soldiers and lords;

    then rises toward noble heights, learning, and benefiting others.

  13. Many a person, amid joy or wedded to his pillow,

    has scarcely seen the night pass before

  14. death comes and catches him as its prey.

    How can life there be pleasant

  15. to one who sees this as his final return?

    How astonishing that I, and others like me,

  16. should accept the world as a resting place,

    though soon, after this, restoration awaits him,

  17. with punishment and reward for wrongdoing and right-doing.

    What ails my ignorance, that every day

  18. it grows more ingenious in vaunting itself?

    In ignorance it has surpassed excess itself—

  19. has the time for its restraint not yet come?

    O my people, what ails my heart,

  20. that it has forever abandoned its striving?

    Lord, set my heart aright;

  21. for to whom else can one complain of his heart?

    End my life in goodness

  22. when its harvest draws near.

    And may blessings and peace—whenever a branch is swayed

  23. by wind, or an exile yearns when he remembers his homeland—

    enfold the Chosen One, Ahmad,

  24. the one I love, supreme in nobility;

    and may they enfold his family and companions—

  25. loving them is the greatest worship.

Sol 5.6