1. Do not trust Time; Time is treacherous.

    One receives, yet Time's giving is deprivation.

  2. Do not suppose that Time's eye is asleep.

    Time is wakeful, while humankind is drowsy.

  3. Do not think the fates of death are heedless of you.

    They watch you intently, though you do not know.

  4. Do not weep for an elder hidden in the earth; how many

    a man among God's prophets lies in the dust.

  5. Where are the kings, and where are their followers

    in glory? Or where are Yunan and Susan?

  6. Did death honor a mighty man for his might?

    Or did a sovereign escape it through wealth?

  7. How many kings were struck by their age's vicissitudes,

    and so became dwellers in the dust!

  8. They held dominion and towering glory, and became

    as though, after that glory, they had never existed.

  9. And how many a mighty chief has had mastery exercised over

    his corpse after that glory—'they were not' [wording unclear].

  10. Every son of a woman—death indeed strikes him down.

    Before it, old men and youths are equal.

  11. Those nights, whenever they show kindness, hold

    grief for a man within their kindness.

  12. The deluded youth longs for their aid,

    yet their aid to a man is nothing but abandonment.

  13. He thinks their commerce profitable, and so follows them,

    and did not know that such profit is loss.

  14. Nothing has ever remained in one state;

    Time and ages have passed over what you see.

  15. For the sun is eclipsed while the celestial spheres revolve,

    and the full moon must inevitably show waning.

  16. Time brings bereavement, and the days are a mount

    that races with its rider, while a lifetime is the racecourse.

  17. Sovereignty belongs to God; authority is not shared,

    and God has no helpers in His judgments.

  18. Death is certain, yet not every young man

    is mourned when loss befalls him.

  19. Nor is the death of a man whose virtues are widely known

    like the death of one with neither merit nor knowledge.

  20. The sciences die when those who know them die,

    and their death is a sign of the abode's ruin.

  21. O driver of the mounts bearing them, gently! For in their absence,

    people are no longer people, nor are lands lands.

  22. And you, O Time, do whatever you will, for already

    pillars among the landmarks of learning have crumbled.

  23. Every day we see the people of virtue in

    declining numbers, while the ignorant gain ascendancy.

  24. He has died who, in every science, had

    a long reach, rigorous inquiry, and mastery.

  25. The sea of learning, al-Khalifi, the garden of the learned—

    how many branches from him bore fruit for students!

  26. O you who aspire to his reach, do not aim too far;

    lame horses cannot equal the finest steeds.

  27. If my lament over him, or my weeping for him, is prolonged,

    then that is a sigh from one sick at heart, with a concern of his own.

  28. He sought my patience, but could not attain it; so he was left

    with his tears, in that state, roaring and pouring.

  29. Give him glad tidings of good, and excuse the one who records his date:

    for al-Khalifi, when he returned, there are boughs.

  30. O Lord, send down upon him mercy from You,

    for You, O Lord, are All-Forgiving and Most Merciful.

  31. And permit clouds of blessing for the one through whom

    the tribes were ennobled—Adnan and Qahtan.

Sol 6.1