حمدا لمن جعل التاريخ عقد حلى — Omar Onsi

Praise be to Him who made history a necklace of jewels,

through which the necks of gifted minds gleam.

Then blessings, together with salutations of peace, I offer

to the best of creation, whenever a star rises or sets;

and to his Family, Companions, and Followers, who sacrificed

their lives and thereby raised virtue to lofty heights.

And now: knowledge of history is the finest thing

the mind can treasure, the loveliest robe to clothe understanding.

Here, after praising God, is a beautiful maiden

whom I have clothed in every lovely jewel of history,

with every diver’s pearl that was precious in price,

until she rose and shone as verse, sweet as a proverb.

If you wish to attain your hope of reaching the heights,

hold fast to memorization until you attain that hope.

Indeed, the Chosen One’s Farewell Pilgrimage had its own

date: “ḥubb” (“love”), obtained through the year’s cipher.

That year is reckoned from the date of his Emigration,

and in it the sanctuary of the true faith was left bereft of him.

May God bless him whenever anything soars and rises,

and whenever grace’s rain pours upon his household.

Now, the conquest of Syria had its beginning;

its chronogram was “a face made sweet with joy.”

And Caesarea, in that year, was indeed conquered

by force; and in it the building of Basra was completed,

until victory’s face beamed; and Egypt too was conquered

on the date “ṭayy” (“folding”), which indeed folded ignorance away.

And Cyprus’s conquest, at the hands of the warriors, had

a cup that gave the polytheists death to drink as wine.

And when he besieged Istanbul, seeking to take it,

I spurred the steed of my chronology and cried, “On!”

And I found the cipher for gunpowder when there appeared

events from it that spread through plain and mountain.

Then began the rise of kings from the house

of Umayya; its date was captured by the cipher “ilā.”

And they built a congregational mosque for the Arabs in the Ghouta;

my chronogram for it shone as verse, delightful as an ornament.

And the first time our dirhams were minted,

I dated it: “The affair of sovereignty returned complete.”

And in “yakun” was al-Nuʿman’s birth; so say:

“He is the imam—the imam of excellence and the excellent.”

And Sicily, in its conquest, was joined by

the Strait of Messina, in the cipher “kasb ʿulā” (“winning glory”).

And when they rebuilt the Congregational Mosque of the Ghouta, there came

its date within it—I mean, “knowledge and action.”

And we reckon a year in which they had paper manufactured,

while before that parchment had been the writing material.

And set against it yourself the date when the sons

of Umayya vanished: “For oppression’s passing” indeed fitted it.

Then the dynasty of the sons of al-Abbas arose,

and good fortune dated it “aqbil” (“Come!”)—if you seek hope.

Then death, too, has its cipher; and when it came

to Abu Hanifa, why did it not seek a longer term?

And al-Shafiʿi, the learned master, was born, by our reckoning,

in that same year; by good fortune the two events were joined.

And the Fatimid dynasty, which arose

in the West in the year “zafīr,” blazed among the people.