أنا التَعَيُّنُ والرب المهين ما

به التعين طوبى للذي فهما

I am individuation; but the all-sovereign Lord has no

individuation in Him. Blessed is the one who understands.

هو الوجود القديم المحض جل ولم

أزل مُقَدَّرَهُ والحادثَ العدما

He is pure, beginningless Existence—exalted!—and I have never

ceased to be what He determines; the originated is nothingness.

فرَّقتُ بيني بتحقيق الوجودِ له

وبينه بعد درْكِ الجمع بينهما

I distinguished my own side, affirming existence as His,

from His side, after apprehending the union of the two.

والجاهل الغر لا يدري مقالتنا

فيه وإن كان محسوباً من العُلَما

The vain, ignorant man does not understand what we say

of Him, though he may be counted among the learned.

ومن عجائب أمري أنني عدم

ولي وجود به قد صرت متَّهَما

Among the wonders of my state is that I am nonbeing,

yet I possess an existence through which I have become suspect.

وهو الذي قبضتني هكذا يده

لها وقد بسطتني صنعة الحُكَما

He is the One whose hand contracted me thus,

and by it the craft of the sages has unfolded me.

فحرت فيه وفي أمري فأرشدني

إليه يثبت لي في علمه قَدَما

I was bewildered by Him and by my own affair; then He guided me

toward Him, establishing for me a firm footing in knowledge of Him.

فها أنا اليوم مشغوفٌ برؤيته

محققاً ظاهراً في الكون منبهما

Here I am today, enamored of the sight of Him—

truly manifest within the cosmos, yet inscrutable.

هل من فتى يا بني قومي أُفَهِّمُهُ

فيكشف الله عنه هذه الغُمَما

Is there some valiant youth, O sons of my people, whom I might teach,

so that God may lift these clouds away from him?

ويصبح القطب في سامي دوائره

وفي الحقائق يمسي المفرد العلما

By morning he becomes the Pole amid his lofty spheres,

and among realities, by evening, the peerless banner.

ما قلت ذلك من نفسي ولا جهلت

حقيقتي فادعت ما قلته شمما

I did not say this from myself, nor was I ignorant of

my reality, so that it proudly claimed what I had said.

وإنما الغيب لي لاحت إشارته

لتُسمعَ اللوحَ ما قالته والقلما

Rather, a sign from the Unseen flashed before me,

to make the Tablet and the Pen hear what it declared.

لوحُ الوجود المسمى روح نفخته

وعقلُهُ قلمٌ كلَّ الورى رقما

The Tablet of existence, called Spirit, is His outbreathing;

its Intellect is a Pen that inscribed all creatures.

مراتب هن للحق الوجود بدت

فيهن كان قديماً واسمهنَّ عَمَا

Ranks appeared in which the existence of the Real was disclosed;

within them He was beginningless, and their name was “ʿumamā.”