أربعةٌ تعجب لحّاظَها

كرّةُ مَن يبصرها خاسره

Four people are strange to behold

Four types of men amaze the watcher's sight,

Whoever sees them has lost

The gaze of him who looks returns in loss.

فواحدٌ دنياه ليست لهُ

بلى لهُ من خلفهِ آخره

One has no worldly possessions

For one, this present world is not his own,

Yet has abundance in the hereafter

Yet his, in truth, is the Eternal Realm.

وآخرٌ دنياهُ منكوسةٌ

من خلفهِ آخرةٌ وافره

Another's world is in ruin

Another finds his worldly life o'erturned,

With ample provisions in the afterlife

Yet after it, an Afterlife of wealth.

وآخرٌ فاز بكلتيهما

فالنفسُ غذ تبصره طائره

Another has succeeded in both

And one has triumphed, winning both the worlds,

His soul flies free when it sees him

The soul, beholding him, takes wing and soars.

ورابعٌ من بينهم خائبٌ

ليست له دنيا ولا آخره

And the fourth among them is wretched

The fourth among them is the wretched failure,

With neither world nor hereafter

Possessing neither this world nor the Next.