Sol 5.6

  1. All glory entire is what my right hand has contained;

    and pride is too small to be my intimate companion.

  2. Time lies beneath the tread of my sole, and mankind is but the hum—

    —ble garment I wear; judgment is merely part of my conjecture.

  3. Generosity bows submissively before my fingertips,

    and the full moon prostrates humbly before my brow.

  4. War stands between my firm resolves and my swords

    when its millstone comes grinding in fury.

  5. The world steps aside from them, while

    my virtues and my stations abide within my faith.

  6. Were the world and all its treasures in my hand,

    I would give them away, for they could never suffice me.

  7. What worth has the transient, what value the perishing?

    My station surpasses all that may befit my right hand.

  8. Justice and the profession of divine unity are all my strongholds,

    and devotion to the House of Purity is the loftiest of my fortresses.

  9. There is no banner save the one I defend,

    while the noblest men in the world defend me.

  10. O House of Aḥmad, I have chanted your praise,

    for I saw the truth utterly manifest.

  11. The Legatee outstripped all who sought the heights

    until he possessed them without peer:

  12. a sun whose disk shall never set,

    and mighty lions that never sheltered in a den.

  13. The Prophet raised him by the upper arm on the Day of Ghadī—

    —r, emphatically confirming the proclamation through explicit designation.

  14. He sealed men’s necks by appointing him to guardianship—

    a sealing of necks unlike the sealing of clay.

  15. A radiant day that illuminated the brow of Hāshim,

    a noble day that grieved every baseborn man.

  16. Credit Badr to him, and question his sword

    about a soul’s departure or its union with death.

  17. Credit Uḥud to him, when he gave Death its fill—

    though Death’s satisfaction displeases every living vein.

  18. Then recall the Confederates, and recall his sword:

    a lion confronting war with clear-eyed discernment.

  19. Recall the Jews at Khaybar, when he scattered them,

    like an eagle driven off by a falcon.

  20. And recall Ḥunayn, when his keen sword came forth

    to meet the challenger with passion and yearning.

  21. He made the polytheists’ blood flow; had it flowed

    on one battlefield, you would have seen a thousand streaming springs.

  22. Recall the Prophet’s bond of brotherhood with him, and his saying—

    what he said concerning Moses and Aaron.

  23. All the doors were shut except his door—

    if only the import of that declaration were understood.

  24. And Barāʾa was taken back, and its charge entrusted to him—

    O Lord, what a momentous deed, superseding so many deeds!

  25. Concerning him, “Has There Come” brought revelation bearing unprecedented glory,

    that every hostile, defrauded Nāṣibī might lower his gaze.

  26. Are the transmitters of the Prophet’s traditions comparable to him

    who is called the Divider of the Fire on Judgment Day?

  27. Who is his gateway to knowledge, while the Prophet is its city?

    Indeed—and the keeper of his treasured secret.

  28. Who married al-Zahrāʾ when suitors crowded forward,

    in a proposal that disclosed what had been hidden?

  29. Who uprooted the oath-breakers’ foundation and severed the ro—

    —pe of the transgressors, while guarding the honor of the faith?

  30. Who was the doom of the renegades and the transgress—

    —ors, holding their deaths in the certainty of the appointed hour?

  31. O nation whose reins delusion has seized,

    you have plunged headlong into ruin in your accursed state!

  32. Are these but fragments—merely the forelock of his excellences,

    and fruits of his lofty virtues, grown without branches?

  33. Should he not be given precedence, while the virtues themselves bear witness,

    and glory stands proudly erect, radiant in the bridge of its nose?

  34. Yet his lifeblood is spilled and his progeny slain,

    and his sacred life is violated for the vilest of people.

  35. The wretch spilled the Legatee’s blood, and thereby

    the hands of the wide-eyed houris tore the robes of Paradise.

  36. Likewise the pretender—the son of harlotry—assaulted him,

    the Prophet’s child, with his long-buried rancor.

  37. The angels of heaven wept at Karbalāʾ,

    and the faith stood amid burning grief and wailing.

  38. Then what befell Zayd, and Yaḥyā after him,

    clothed Islam in a garment of sorrows.

  39. There the Umayyads avenged their ancient blood-feuds,

    within the whole company of their assured error.

  40. Thus she says: “You neither submitted nor believed, nor

    held fast to a sure and solid rope.”

  41. Then behold the Abbasids following exactly in her footsteps.

    Ask, then, about al-Manṣūr or Hārūn;

  42. ask—and do not be deceived by the guise they donned,

    or by what they falsified in the tale of al-Maʾmūn.

  43. And so it continues ceaselessly—the crimes are legion,

    disorder—and how many a sigh and groan!

  44. The House of Guidance lies between one slain and one cap—

    —tive, one poisoned, and one imprisoned.

  45. God shall requite the oppressors with their own fire,

    so that, after a time, they may learn the tidings.

  46. O my masters, I am Ibn ʿAbbād, who through you

    grazes in the gardens of glory and dominion.

  47. Through you he wards off whatever befalls, and from you

    he hopes for intercession with the soundest certainty.

  48. This poetic creation of mine, long labored over, has reached you,

    arrayed in beauty and finely wrought construction.

  49. If you measure the verses of master poets against its beauty,

    then measure thornwood against a garden of eglantine.

  50. To you, O Kūfī, I recite it—proceed unhurriedly;

    and labor over its expressive chanting and melody.

Sol 5.6