Sol 5.6

  1. This is a tomb—oh, what a sight!

    Within it the sun of al-Bashir Muhammad has set.

  2. Look upon it: what splendor it contains,

    what radiance, blazing with the lights of guidance!

  3. After the shaykh, it was not left bereft of knowledge, nor

    of piety—as though its Bashir had never been lost.

  4. That is he who wore Sufism as an ornament,

    which granted him the truest station in guiding seekers.

  5. He is the one from whom no litany’s draught is absent;

    among them, his is the sweetest watering-place.

  6. He is the one whom no one ever saw without saying:

    Among ascetics and worshippers, no one is his equal.

  7. Ask Mecca and Medina of him—how often he crossed

    broad desert wastes toward them beneath his mounts’ tread.

  8. And ask the needy at his door how often there overflowed

    largesse surging like a foam-crested sea.

  9. He sprang from a lineage whose purity the Book proclaimed,

    and called for their veneration with loving devotion:

  10. the Messenger’s family, noble lords and highborn descendants, who

    inherited lordship, one master from another.

  11. Piety and every virtue adorned them,

    as silver and gold lend glory to a bracelet.

  12. Who equals them in merit? Every soul granted success

    sets out under their guidance to attain virtue.

  13. Do not marvel that their sons have indeed risen

    in noble deeds to the station of the Pole Star.

  14. Such as al-Wanīs, the munificent sayyid, who

    attained his hopes through his peerless inward secret.

  15. When he passed on, al-Bashir came in his wake,

    a light by which the seeker of guidance finds the way.

  16. Whoever sees him remembers his Lord after heedlessness,

    and revives his heart with a guide’s words.

  17. How often he prayed, and difficult aims yielded

    to his supplication, though they yielded to no one else.

  18. His noble deeds are renowned; their number eludes you—

    if you would number the stars, then number them.

  19. So make your way to visit him with a sincere heart,

    and call upon the Generous One, for He is ever watchful.

  20. No wonder that, marking the date, I said of him:

    “Take refuge in his sanctuary, and at the goal your wish shall be yours.”

Sol 5.6