عوجوا رقاب اليعملات الذلل — Alluah

Turn the necks of the strong, tractable she-camels,

O their drivers, if only reason were anointed with kohl for me;

And, if you were upon their backs, may there reach out to me

from a generous-handed man among you, the hand of one in haste.

And let him surely offer praise that will be your radiance,

and a greeting from me, like the fragrance of aloeswood.

When it is chanted among you, it is as though it were

honey sweet to swallow, and the scent of cloves.

In every rhyme are wonders of wisdom,

and in each verse's opening hemistich, an eloquent speaker's wisdom.

When you mount, make it your watchword

at night—the finest thing recited apart from scripture.

And when you halt at a lodging, seek protection through it,

and seek blessing through its chanting at your lodging.

For it is your refreshment in every midday heat,

and it is the light in every pitch-dark night.

Because of its worth, its splendor, and its majesty,

the crown is placed beneath it, lower down.

If you enter consecration, it is your garment; and if

you leave consecration, it is the reward for one released.

When the young she-camels are driven by its song, they rumble,

yearning for the one toward whom they are urged and climb.

The finest, richest praise is that to which

the mounts' forelegs trot toward the generous, lavish giver:

the master, the refuge, the Prophet Muhammad,

the pure, the intercessor, the manifest light;

pure in character and lineage, and the son

of one pure in character, possessed of lofty honor;

pure of sword-belt, greatest of those who have trodden gravel,

and most honored of the barefoot and the sandal-shod;

the rightly guided guide, the chosen Prophet,

the pure, the well-pleasing, the mantle-clad, the wrapped;

the seal of the noble messengers, the last of them

in advent, yet first in great excellence.

Without him, the world would not exist, nor would humankind

have been created; nor would any of the books have been sent down.

Without him, Paradise would never have existed, nor

would blazing Hell have been created for a burdened sinner.

Without him, the Sovereign Guardian would not have created Adam

as Eve's husband, she the mother of husbands.

He is his Creator's secret and the seal of His messengers;

without the Messenger, His messengers would not have been sent.

His light passes in succession from Adam's loins;

how noble a light—clear, transmitted in succession!

from Adam, from his Seth, his Idris,

from Noah, and to his Shem, the custodian;

and to Eber and Peleg, his Adnan,

his Ibrahim, his Isaac the devout;

to his lofty Qusay, to his Abd Manaf,

and to Hashim, Amr al-Ula, the lofty, the exalted.

In lineage, the sun's radiance falls short of his:

the sun set, but the light of his stock did not.

At his birth, Persia's fire went out,

and the palace hall of firmly established Khosrow collapsed.

The wolf spoke to him, and a gazelle came to him

with the greeting of a fluent, eloquent speaker.

He split the full moon with his sleeve, and a spider

wove for him in the cave a loose-textured web.

Glory be to Him who carried him by night to

the farthest of mosques and the most excellent abode.

The noble angels journeyed, escorting him,

from one assembly they passed through to another,

until he indeed attained his desire and won

great, preeminent honor.

He drew the sword of justice until he made

Islam manifest through the display of decisive swords.

And Yaghuth, his Nasr, and his Ya'uq became

shattered by sword-edges and slender spears.

May God bless him as long as a breath rises

upward and writing flows from fingertips.

My master—indeed, master of all creation—

I call to you with the plea of an afflicted man seeking aid.

I have an ailment whose letters are counted:

they are six, and its remedy has not worked.

Alif and lam, dhal, nun, its waw,

and ba—joined together, not set apart.

So ask your God to grant His favor

and be generous to me with six letters:

alif and lam, ra, ḥa, its mim

before ha—this is the afflicted one's cure.

And to you, my master, I offer my excuse: I

have fallen short in my praise, with a hurried man's brevity.

Even if I fashioned all of myself into tongues

and lived as long as Yadhbul's towering peaks endure,

I would not attain a tenth of a tenth of a tenth, or

a tenth of a tenth, in accepted praise of you.

And even if, in praising you, I were only a speck

in a vast sea, or a drop in a flowing stream.

This is my praise of you, while God is the One

who praised you through His words and measured recitation.

Yet I seek your intercession, my master;

so revive the work of your humble servant who seeks mediation.

I stand exposed before you, so forgive my lapse:

my not coming soon to visit you in the camel-litter.

I have not been ignorant of what is due to you; rather,

work you yourself require of me keeps me occupied.

And when I reach the coming year, I

will surely visit your face, if God wills it for me.

So upon you and your two companions lying beside you be praise from me,

and the fragrance of peace with every coming day;

and upon your followers, your righteous companions, and

the noble family, of the finest kind.