Sol 6.1

  1. We endure worries and sorrows in this world,

    and balks at a deed that, if embodied, would be sorrows [wording unclear].

  2. We favor our earthly life—even if we find sweet

    the fatal blows of calamity—over love of our hereafter.

  3. We fret over what we have not gained from it,

    and rejoice in what perishes, squandering our hereafter.

  4. If only you took warning from the lessons in us,

    and our fathers who have departed from us, and our sons.

  5. We escort our dead with wailing and anguish,

    then return from them, safely bringing back our living.

  6. We consign those whose faces we once jealously guarded

    from the heat to a grave with a dark burial niche, all alone.

  7. A neighbor among neighbors, with no bond between them,

    the loneliest neighbor, keeping no company with neighbors.

  8. We quarrel over their inheritance before their burial,

    as though we were our dead, though death has not overtaken us.

  9. Our hopes have laughed, and our hearts [reading uncertain],

    and our earlier ones have not been a warning to our later ones.

  10. How strange—a dead man visiting a dead man,

    consoling him for a dead man who departed before him!

  11. Here we are, all dead, together with our sons,

    and fathers, dead, both mature and young.

  12. The share of the highly esteemed in death's allotment,

    and in the burial niche, is only the share of the lowly.

  13. And the rank of the exalted one whom they hurry

    to a pit whose sight shames whoever beholds it!

  14. O heedless one, unaware of what is intended for you,

    I see you a heavy sleeper, dead at heart though awake.

  15. Prepare yourself: the riders of death have raced

    toward you, having driven other riders ahead of you.

  16. After ʿUmayra, son of Thani, possessor of the oft-repeated verses,

    do you hope for life, or see solace for his loss?

  17. He hosted death's visitations after preparing his provisions,

    though he had not yet reached life's full potential.

  18. He hosted them, offering piety and distinction,

    and knowledge, divine favor, judgment, and beneficence.

  19. A young man whose forbearance had the ages as its vessel,

    yet they could not contain it, even with more ages added.

  20. He was a face and a voice for the head of Time,

    and hearing, a mind [epithet unclear], and humanity.

  21. His life among us proved that religion lived;

    their death is death itself; may the betrayer never be,

  22. nor anyone delighted that knowledge vanishes thus,

    in plain sight, though it blinds hearts and wearies us.

  23. Though he was learned, a storehouse of his wisdom,

    he was also [epithet unclear], a light, and a proof.

  24. Wise: his heart saw what the eye could not.

    He had a jewel that openly revealed hidden thoughts.

  25. Generous: you saw guests filling his courtyard.

    For pilgrims to God's House [reading uncertain], he brought guests.

  26. Wise, possessing discernment from the essence of intellect,

    he had a mold of thought in which he cast faith.

  27. He departed, leaving love in every heart,

    which people had adopted as devotions to God.

  28. His renown blazed among the angels in heaven,

    and our Lord placed it among the dwellers of the earths.

  29. He departed, leaving in every gathering a noble character

    whose fragrance resembles musk and ben-tree perfume.

  30. He departed pure in companionship, sleep, and waking,

    in body and heart, then collar and sleeves.

  31. He departed after leading others to the path of guidance,

    breaking idols and cutting down false gods,

  32. and curing hearts gone blind, and souls

    that had gathered rust before he reached them.

  33. Who will uphold the foundations of religion after ʿUmayra?

    Death has cut down root and branches.

  34. Who will gather the scattered branches of learning,

    and lodge them nowhere but in hearts and bodies?

  35. How many blind hearts he guided through guidance,

    and how many deaf and blind he cured with medicine!

  36. Knowledge, forbearance, and piety will weep for him,

    though they were offerings on his behalf to the All-Protecting One.

  37. Books will weep for him, and the pen for which

    he spread a field across the parchment's level plain.

  38. A mountain of the house of Fihr ibn Ghalib has been laid to rest;

    yes, a vast sea from the house of Adnan has ebbed away.

  39. I offer condolences for him to the house of Muhammad;

    shall I seek Mudar the Red, to console them and Qahtan?

  40. How can one console who, whenever consolation is mentioned,

    breaks into gasps and wails, grief-stricken?

  41. I am distraught, worn down by grief for him; have you,

    sons of Hashim, a remedy to cure a distraught mourner?

  42. If only you had buried ʿUmayra

    in my eyes, so I could lay eyelids over his sides!

  43. I see that you have surrendered him to the soil,

    though my heart had more right to him than the earth.

  44. If only my blood had been the blend of his perfume,

    and my skin—if only!—had been his shrouds.

  45. He set out purposefully toward the Most Merciful's mercy;

    may He provision him for the Gathering with pardon and forgiveness.

  46. He settled in a dwelling that had been desolate without him,

    and left homelands in beautiful Sanaʿa deserted.

  47. May rain water it with draught after draught and heavy showers,

    and dew, dripping rain, trickles, and steady downpours.

  48. Had he left sorrow among us

    equal to the kindness he left among people,

  49. and were it not for hope in those remaining, I would have died of grief;

    but after rain, the garden is our pasture.

  50. Sons of Hashim, virtues have encompassed you;

    consolation and patience bring the richest rewards.

  51. You are firm-rooted, lofty mountains,

    and seas of knowledge, and the suns of our world.

  52. May you endure: through you our world is a paradise,

    and your chamberlain there in Sanaʿa is Ridwan.

Sol 6.1