Sol 6

  1. He sang, one scorched by oppression and separation,

    composing while his heart was full of longing.

  2. He composes of time's turns, which betrayed

    us and left each person to a different fate.

  3. It left us, each person in another land,

    and scattered our fragments across the countries.

  4. Like clouds driven by the north wind, we moved,

    scattered in Turkish lands, held captive.

  5. Some, in the Turks' wilderness, lost their way;

    some vanished in the west of Zinati.

  6. Some were driven off, their pledges betrayed,

    with mail hanging loose about their necks.

  7. Some lie within weathered graves

    in Crete and the green land, in death and humiliation.

  8. Some left their bones in Turkish soil;

    the soil and worms of Turkey consumed them.

  9. Some of us fell, and their stars have since disappeared;

    young men were buried in Rhodes's earth.

  10. Some of us were thrown into the open sea;

    some in Damascus found no one to bury them.

  11. Some died of wasting along the roads;

    for the emigrant, too, his time came.

  12. And in the wars of Hauran, our dear homeland,

    birds and wolves ate some of us.

  13. Have we not become, before people everywhere,

    a subject of talk on every Arab tongue?

  14. Talked of with reproach among all people,

    as days and years betrayed us.

  15. The days betrayed us through the wickedness of their deeds,

    and treacherous time betrayed us too.

  16. Some days hold pleasures and delight;

    other days bring men sorrow.

  17. Some days bring honor by sword and spear;

    other days bring the honored humiliation.

  18. Some days offer nectar and honey to drink;

    other days lead them to a murky watering place.

  19. Some days are pastures of ease and purity;

    other days are dark and black.

  20. Some days bring abundance and an easy life;

    others bring hardship and make you beg from someone.

  21. Some days hold safety untouched by dread;

    other days hold fear for a person.

  22. Some days are white, whiter than milk;

    others are dark, darker than ravens.

  23. When days lean against a lofty mountain,

    they will surely bring it low, wherever it stands.

  24. They will surely make it level through affliction,

    a place to wallow where solid rocks once stood.

  25. Whoever resists the days will be overcome,

    even with an army of a hundred thousand.

  26. Even if his army crushes sand and pebbles,

    resisting the days will humble and soften him.

  27. Beautiful patience: patience is sweeter than honey.

    Perhaps God will bring a clear reprieve.

  28. Perhaps, after the suffering that befell

    us, the One of great majesty will resolve it,

  29. by the sanctity of the sanctuary, the House, the Corner, and Safa,

    and the Chosen One praised in the faiths.

  30. After this, flame of my heart, burn bright

    and bring verses from a heart full to overflowing.

  31. Bring verses gathered from within me,

    choice fruit for discerning critics, worth a price.

  32. The pen moves, revealing their meanings

    on paper, drawing houses of song.

  33. I set them forth from the land of oppression and misery,

    on the back of a freeborn camel, through hardship and glaring heat.

  34. O rider leaving us on a lean camel,

    ready to outpace the gazelles,

  35. a noble Sharari camel of pure stock,

    swift as a herd's foremost runners.

  36. When she strides among trees and the open waste appears,

    she glides across its surface like a falcon.

  37. Her rider can scarcely hold her reins,

    even when he aims the whip and hooked stick.

  38. When you release her, she shimmers like a mirage in her quick pace;

    her light hoof scarcely marks the ground.

  39. I fastened atop her high hump

    a Yemeni saddle, raised like a gazelle's back,

  40. its supports adorned with costly gold

    and studded with emerald and coral.

  41. A fine, balanced covering of precious silk,

    and a silk girth for the racing camel.

  42. The saddle cushion is shaped like a pillow, carefully made,

    and its tassels play in many colors.

  43. The Uqayli saddlebag bears a patterned weave,

    made with fine workmanship and proportion.

  44. O my messenger, ready her and urge her on;

    a guest in the Turks' wilderness has no standing.

  45. Gird yourself with a broad, greenish curved blade;

    wear an Indian sword, sharp at the edge.

  46. Your gun is fashioned in a workshop's style,

    and your six-shot pistol is always loaded.

  47. Bring verses gathered from within me,

    choice fruit for discerning critics, worth a price.

  48. The pen moves, revealing their meanings

    on paper, drawing houses of song.

  49. I set them forth from the land of oppression and misery,

    on the back of a freeborn camel, through hardship and glaring heat.

  50. O rider leaving us on a lean camel,

    ready to outpace the gazelles,

  51. a noble Sharari camel of pure stock,

    swift as a herd's foremost runners.

  52. When she strides among trees and the open waste appears,

    she glides across its surface like a falcon.

  53. Her rider can scarcely hold her reins,

    even when he aims the whip and hooked stick.

  54. When you release her, she shimmers like a mirage in her quick pace;

    her light hoof scarcely marks the ground.

  55. I fastened atop her high hump

    a Yemeni saddle, raised like a gazelle's back,

  56. its supports adorned with costly gold

    and studded with emerald and coral.

  57. A fine, balanced covering of precious silk,

    and a silk girth for the racing camel.

  58. The saddle cushion is shaped like a pillow, carefully made,

    and its tassels play in many colors.

  59. The Uqayli saddlebag bears a patterned weave,

    made with fine workmanship and proportion.

  60. O my messenger, ready her and urge her on;

    a guest in the Turks' wilderness has no standing.

  61. Gird yourself with a broad, greenish curved blade;

    wear an Indian sword, sharp at the edge.

  62. Your gun is fashioned in a workshop's style,

    and your six-shot pistol is always loaded.

  63. He gives away fine-bred animals without weighing their color

    and does not ask the giver about cost or price.

  64. O keeper of honor, O winner of praise,

    O sheltering cave, O April rain,

  65. O warrior, O free spirit of watchposts and dunes,

    O fierce lion, O angry tiger,

  66. O leader on the day of battle, when sheltered women are at risk,

    when the base-born man is humbled and disappears.

  67. Turkish rabble caught you by deceit and disgrace;

    you did not see what happened to us a year before.

  68. You did not see the day they seized us and departed,

    roped together like sheep.

  69. They led us treacherously to a place of calamity

    and scattered our fragments across the countries.

  70. If only one who witnessed those events had stood firm:

    he would rush forward, no coward fleeing.

  71. If you ask why they took you as they took us,

    we were children and unwary, O brave ones.

  72. But the common crowd drove you into disaster,

    and everyone among us abandoned Hauran.

  73. When they came in a crush, heads packed like onions,

    they made young men old and brought the enemy in.

  74. They ravaged Hauran, our dear homeland;

    may God afflict them with disease and pain.

  75. They played havoc with it until it was ruined

    and shaken in all its foundations.

  76. They agreed upon meager hopes

    and bound themselves to falsehood and slander.

  77. Today an assembly at Mardak and Ahira;

    tomorrow they move it to Amalh and Matan.

  78. Tomorrow they move it again and settle their opinion quietly,

    while each of us who attends is left to his own lot.

  79. You mix the good with deceit in your work,

    and religious elders have taken the field.

  80. The religious elders joined them in anger,

    like rabble in a time of upheaval.

  81. It became nothing but clamor and the darkness of affliction,

    after it had been a garden for all.

  82. From the many strange measures they devised,

    every house and hall was given license.

  83. They became the cause of our anger and discontent;

    they went, and we went into the wilderness like smoke.

  84. Though once, among all the communities, we were

    a refuge and shelter for the Arabs of Istanbul.

  85. Our deeds were witnessed by all the tribes,

    no mere tale told by our children and old men.

  86. How many princes sheltered under our protection;

    how many Arab people sought refuge among us.

  87. Even if the Turkish state demanded them, we would refuse,

    though blood ran over the ground in pools.

  88. We bore their grievances, even when we were not in their condition,

    though troops marched from Aleppo to Ma'an.

  89. Today we have become a reproach among the tribes

    so that so-and-so's father might become a sheikh.

  90. The blame is greater still than the calamity.

    May God gather us in a land of safety

  91. and grant all of us deliverance from affliction,

    and free us from a people of tyranny.

  92. May Hauran reunite us in safety and peace,

    and may we rejoice to see family and friends.

  93. Then we will recall their outrages and regret our counsel

    on the day we remained enemies in the mountains.

  94. By God, you who spread the earth for the world

    and raised the sky without pillars,

  95. O creator of the shining sun and its light,

    the moon of pure light, and the balance,

  96. O ruler of the encircling sea and its wonders,

    O keeper of souls and the universe,

  97. O ultimate end of all hopes, relieve our distress

    and hear the oppressed one's prayer, O Bountiful One.

  98. Gather our scattered people, O gatherer of creation,

    on the day of presentation before the One who judges.

  99. َ

    Grant all of us deliverance from affliction

    and gather us from all the countries.

  100. Gather us and have mercy on our scattered children;

    restore us, O One of great majesty,

  101. for the sake of the Prophet who honored earth and sky,

    the Chosen One, his family, and the Quran.

  102. We are scattered, with no one to support us

    except your mercy, generosity, and forgiveness.

  103. Let your mercy embrace our scattered children,

    though we are humbled in disgrace, O Tender One.

  104. O my messenger, after you deliver my greetings

    and make clear my crowded longing and grief,

  105. greet the one named Abu Muhammad Khalil,

    wise and refined, a lamp of the gathering.

  106. O distinguished one, O mountain, what is your counsel in this plight?

    O heir of the falcon and the eagles,

  107. where is the promised support for the commander and his soldiers?

    Where are the attendants for the notables now?

  108. O sheikh, the treacherous people must be replaced;

    whoever trusted them was left with empty sheepfolds.

  109. May God relieve us all

    by the secret of the Chosen Prophet, descendant of Adnan.

  110. Carry my peace and a thousand greetings

    to people of kindness, generosity, and beneficence:

  111. our noble and valiant kin in Ankara,

    living there while guards stand watch.

  112. They pitched their tents upon generosity

    and are horsemen on the day of turmoil.

  113. When the sons of Qays raise their banners and shout,

    they call out to the foe like Abu al-Hisnan.

  114. Since losing them, my body has been sick,

    and my heart thirsts to see their faces.

  115. Greet them all, my messenger,

    and tell them I am in a land of humiliation.

  116. I am in a Turkish land where they do not understand the language;

    the sight of them leaves my suffering heart forlorn.

  117. Their ways are alien to those of the desert people;

    their character is harsh beside other people's.

  118. Whoever has known them curses the traits of their kind,

    and their rulers cannot be trusted.

  119. They betrayed us; may God bring down their banners,

    and may the Lord of destinies break their power too.

  120. Yet treachery and shame are their trade:

    who trusts a venomous creature or a snake?

  121. One must keep one's blood from their poison,

    lest one die without a wound, full of regret.

  122. I advise you, listener to the words of my poem:

    whoever trusted the Turks has lost.

  123. My words today may be of no use,

    and words of reproach are left to the women.

  124. Wishing cannot undo regrets,

    nor can a mirage quench the thirsty.

  125. Perhaps things will clear and the mood will change,

    and a horseman will one day mount at their head.

  126. He will ride at the summit of glory,

    and Hauran will flourish as it did before.

  127. We seek to recover our scattered kin from all people,

    if the Most High, Merciful Lord helps us.

  128. We will do good to those among humanity who did us good;

    for his kindness, each will receive kindness again.

  129. And if we perish at sea, others like us have perished;

    many a riding camel has fallen on the road to the Hijaz.

  130. And if we return, God is able to gather us,

    as Jonah returned from the depths of the sea.

  131. With the Chosen One I close these words,

    that he may intercede for us against the scorching fires.

  132. May He deliver us all from affliction

    and grant us a good and gracious end.

Sol 6