علا لك ذكر لا يشابهه ذكر — Ibn Alwardi

Your renown has risen beyond all other renown.

You have attained a glory no other glory can reach.

Joy to you for a blessing whose memory God has preserved.

Through it, joy has endured and its fragrance has spread.

By taking al-Nasiriyya, you have championed our faith.

What a victory and triumph in God's cause!

You named it the House of Hadith because

it was newly acquired when the order came to take it away.

You turned the kaf into a hamza, and it became a companionable place.

By your life, my heart rejoices in that change.

How many synagogues and churches have envied it!

Its captivity in Jewish hands has been ended.

You secured agreement over it, and their

tears scattered; at a binding, scattering is no surprise.

You revived it with teaching after its decline.

The remembrance of God is now proclaimed aloud within it.

By taking it away, you increased the Jews' distress.

Their faces resemble their yellow turbans.

If the mention of Muhammad there saddened the grieving,

then Moses, who spoke with God, smiles for the truth.

At this, the hearts of the accursed mourners depart.

That has two meanings; let the secret be understood.

It had been defiled by the lisping speech of the wicked.

The remembrance of the good made its fragrance complete.

The seven oft-repeated verses fill its six directions.

Its ten words are devoted to God's oneness.

Whoever resents this is no Muslim.

Would a Muslim choose for unbelief to prevail?

If a muezzin has replaced the sound of a horn,

then a definite name has replaced an indefinite one.

You turned them from its precinct when you consigned them

to humiliation; what is declined takes a kasra.

O Hatim of Islam, they wished to redeem it

with all they owned. Let them be silenced; the matter is settled.

People know that if Hatim

had wanted riches, he would have had wealth in abundance.

If they swore we would take its sister too,

no expiation would be due: perhaps their oath would prove true.

We shall collect from them rent for their dwelling in it.

The buyer is known, and the price has been settled.

Can their harm to the Prophet and their hatred be forgotten,

or their denials, the poison in the sheep, and the sorcery?

It is as though they are still in the wilderness; among them,

their quails have appeared, while their scheming has grown.

By your right, what the

Jews deserve is not this, nor two-tenths, nor even a tenth.

Your red pens have done to them

in the cause of justice what white and dark weapons could not.

What happened to its neighbor has now delighted al-Nuriyya.

A neighbor rejoices in a neighbor's good fortune.

It turned its ear to the House of Hadith and listened.

Before, their unbelief had made its hearing dull.

I marveled at it when I came to its rise.

It did not dance for joy, though: it is stone.

By God, it no longer fears humiliation

while Nur al-Din's endowments stand behind it as support.

How could it fear any lack now that it is complete,

with the chief judge as its treasure?

An imam whose presence those in need seek out,

whose hand sends rain upon it in every region.

Friend of generosity, bane of enemies, turner-away of ruin,

imam of guidance, whose overflowing bounty surpasses all bounds.

He gathered knowledge from its signs and from groups

of noble Helpers whose faces shine.

I think a pilgrim in consecration must offer a ransom

if his name is spoken among the pilgrims.

When he speaks, he revives al-Shafi‘i through legal understanding

and transmission; when he probes a question, how fine his probing!

I do not consider the office in Aleppo equal to his learning—

I was mistaken: neither is Baghdad nor Egypt.

If the factions should try to test him,

victory would captivate the darkness of their disputation.

Even if he had accomplished nothing else in his life,

this would suffice him; his other deeds are too many to count.

O rescuer of that place from misery and hardship,

I would give my life for you: rescue me, for my life is spent.

I foresee that I will be left neglected.

All judging has earned me is disputes and guilt.

I live in the land of cultivation beside people

with dusty faces and red clothes.

They think it admirable that they have not raised me up.

People of merit have no standing with them.

Whenever a group of them enters Aleppo

on business, anxious thoughts occupy my mind.

I wonder whether they have plotted against me.

Perhaps they have turned away from me or conceived betrayal.

This is not because of any wrong I have committed.

A new lawsuit has troubled my reputation.

Someone like me is right to guard his good name,

for, praise God, it is pure and no stain has marred it.

They are all pleased with me and speak

well of me; yet if I acted carelessly, they would not approve.

A man's wealth is no good once his honor is lost.

There is no life worth living when one's name is disgraced.

I cling to the hem of Badil al-Rafi‘i,

for distance from his door has harmed me.

I have tired of accommodating the base among people.

It has become clear to me that judging is a rugged mountain.

It brings evils, not joys; I have forgotten what

I memorized and merely chew over what I once learned.

Those once behind me have passed ahead, and I resent

my obscurity; yet this is what a good man does.

I have endured the confinement of judging since youth.

When its enclosure is complete, will the confinement end?

Still, I would be content to take up the judgeship

and then be dismissed from it, with neither sin nor reward.

If a person's wealth grows while his knowledge shrinks,

that is a loss beyond comparison.

O peerless one of Islam, I rely

on you; your servant is not naive in his appeal.

If I meet your face or merely see it,

that encounter will mend my heart.

Release me from judging in the countryside, as a kindness

to me through my separation from it, O boundless sea.

At your door, the branches of what I hope to attain

spring from roots of longing, and their fruit is burning coal.

Love of learning has occupied me more than the rank of judge.

Would someone seeking pearls turn aside for shells?

Some wondered how I could leave my post

and reject it deliberately, without being forced.

They asked, 'Who has ever attained the rank of judge

and left it before the grave concealed him?'

I hold learning to be a higher rank for me than judging,

even if its only reward were your radiant insights.

You know the hardship of judging.

Perhaps ease will follow hardship.

If someone says, 'A judge in Iraq suffered such-and-such,'

I imagine I am that judge, and dread takes hold.

And if a messenger from you comes to me, I recoil

like a sparrow shaking off raindrops.

Such is the nature of a modest man who does not love office;

yet the satisfaction of his envious rivals is bitter to him.

God's gifts give me enough without any of this.

If this hardship continues, what excuse can there be?

Content with my lot, I imagined even the stars beneath me in rank.

Far from me is fear of poverty; fearing it amid plenty is poverty.

I still have time and strength to pursue the sciences.

Neither age nor pride holds me back from them.

Why do I see rulers other than you, when they meet

a gifted person, give him abandonment as his fullest share?

They appoint him in the countryside to keep him obscure.

He becomes as one dead, with the estates as his grave.

Someone like you would not accept a village posting for someone like me.

My soul has needs, and in my lord lies their remedy.

So take this Arabic poem, rosy in hue,

a descendant of Bakri verse, with your affection as its bridal gift.

Even if I did not state my lineage, it would not escape

a discerning person that pearls come from the sea.

I am no professional panegyrist, and poetry is not my trade.

Rather, for the soul's perfection, I set even prose in order.

If a person thought clearly, he would offer you no praise as a gift.

Who sends dates to Hajar?

May you endure as long as noble deeds, and attain what

you hope for whenever the moon shines through darkness.