يا دواة اجعلي مدادك وردا — Ismail Sabry

O inkwell, make your ink a draught

for the visiting pens, time after time.

And let it change like time, from state to state:

at times stagnant, at others flowing.

Honor learning, and grant its servants

your dear, precious, costly water.

And give freely of its clear, purified water

to the guides of inmost hearts, who lead aright.

And if injustice and darkness seek help

on an ill-starred day from the most ignorant of the ignorant,

and draw ink from evils,

then make it part of the oppressors' share.

And cast the drop in which has lain

the hidden wrath of the Subduer, the Abaser,

into the reed pen of a man who, whenever he writes a line,

casts truth aside and adopts falsehood as his creed.

And if within you there is a drop of evil,

fashioned wholly from wickedness,

then make it the portion of those who have violated

in politics, the inviolability of the weakest.

And if you fear that speech may yield

boulders that pelt the listeners,

then withhold your ink, even if you are

offered hundreds for it, then hundreds more.

But if a physician is in need of ink,

tirelessly describing disease and seeking aid,

then grant him ink as a favor and a kindness,

and delight in helping those who do good.

And if the lifeblood of doves imparts

its pure, guarded secret to a drop,

then dedicate it to bonds of affection,

and give it to the letters of those who yearn.

And if in your heart there is nothing but

what sincerity has prepared for the sincere,

then make it my script, so I may write with it

an account of my state to the Master of the Messengers.