Sol 6.1

  1. What a pillar among the scholars has given way!

    What a star has fallen from the heights!

  2. Indeed, Islam's loss of the learned master of hadith

    has become one of the greatest calamities.

  3. After him, the dwellings of the traditions became deserted,

    and the landmarks of transmitted accounts stood empty.

  4. O you who seek his equal throughout time,

    do you hope to embrace the Anqa?

  5. His gathering-place was like gardens when

    the blossoms smiled through the dew's weeping.

  6. He was a scholar who fed our ears, from

    black ink, the whiteness of his insights.

  7. He was a sea that bestowed upon whoever swam in it

    exquisite, gleaming pearls.

  8. He was among mankind's most learned in the names

    of hadith transmitters and scholars.

  9. So henceforth, on the parchments, they are like verbs

    when stripped of nouns.

  10. Against the blemish of alteration and misreading, he was

    a safeguard for anyone stumbling blindly.

  11. In his faith he was strong and upright,

    steadfast in adversity and prosperity.

  12. He was a great scholar and genealogist; never

    was anything whatsoever hidden from him.

  13. Oh, what a crushing calamity,

    whose arrow never swerved from a fatal strike!

  14. It demolished the summit of lofty virtues and buried

    the body of glory in the dust of the earth.

  15. His bier showed us how

    the prophets' biers were once displayed.

  16. His bier was borne onward by kings and angels

    of the heavens, with weeping and prayer.

  17. And grief for him drew tears from the eyes of the people

    of earth, until heaven's tears flowed.

  18. Enough honor for him that rain was sought through him,

    so the hand of the rain-bringing stars gave it freely.

  19. May God uplift his bier and water him

    with mercy through the rain-laden cloud.

  20. We wished that the eyes had poured forth,

    after him, blood instead of tears.

  21. And for those eyes, the tears were blood,

    bleached by the heat of the entrails.

  22. And the enemies' eyes have indeed found comfort,

    though long they had slept with grit in them.

  23. How often, through him, the enemy was made to swallow deadly poison

    from draughts of misery and hardship!

  24. He never ceased to humble the enemy and go about

    trailing the bordered cloaks of prosperity.

  25. Whoever may gloat—death has a force

    that unassailable power cannot turn aside.

  26. It has a leap before which are humbled the lions

    of al-Shara and armies in battle.

  27. Whoever dies, let him die as Abu al-Qasim died,

    in chastity and with fair praise.

  28. How much learning and forbearance his grave held,

    and how much radiance and eminence it enclosed!

  29. If he is counted among the dead, he has left

    knowledge that has kept him among the living.

  30. He deposits in the blackness of every heart,

    through his writings, the whiteness of devotion.

  31. And his sons trace their descent to him; the goodness

    of the root is strengthened by the goodness of its fruit.

  32. You, O sons of Asakir, have a house

    towering upon the summits of nobility and exaltation.

  33. Your father ever begot noble sons; he was never given tidings

    except of noble, distinguished lords.

  34. And you have among mankind a lofty renown,

    towering above the summit of al-Jawza.

  35. So console yourselves for him with patience, though he

    departed, taking our endurance and consolation with him.

  36. We weep for him in sorrow; yet many

    a houri has clasped his hand in the grave!

  37. O first unveiler of every delicate meaning,

    exalted in worth like an unpierced pearl!

  38. Our patience, O master of learning, has become,

    at your loss, intractable and fiercely defiant.

  39. The scholars of the lands have loosened their knee-bands

    for you, O you who lavished gifts on all mankind.

  40. What could we possibly say of you, when

    your benefactions have already exceeded all reckoning?

  41. You are too exalted to be measured by any description

    attained by the eloquence of the eloquent.

  42. You most deserve to be mourned in verse—until

    creation is raised—by the tongues of poets.

  43. So peace be upon you whenever the face

    of dawn shines beneath a black forelock.

  44. And may the soil in which you are hidden be watered

    by every dark cloud and every steady downpour.

Sol 6.1