Sol 6.1

  1. I visited a campsite at ʿUfrā, or by its watercourse—

    ashes and stones that remained there blackened.

  2. I did not leave it until the day was half gone,

    and until both my eyes had drawn forth tears.

  3. I conceal sorrows that, if some of them sank deep

    into solid stone, would leave a crack in it.

  4. I reel like a drinker toyed with

    by wine that rested in its jar for nine years—

  5. tawny wine from Maqadd, laying its drinkers low

    when they wished to be taken home, struck down by it;

  6. the pressed juice of vines from Ḥudayjāʾ, whose

    growing grounds were neither newly established nor bare.

  7. Leave that, then—but do you see the light of lightning,

    a flicker whose gleam you see despite its distance?

  8. It rose over Dhāt al-Arānib after nightfall;

    whenever it shook out thunder, you thought its rain fell double.

  9. Its pillars left none of its blackness,

    nor any whiteness, to be added—not even a stray cloud-patch.

  10. It towered in the east wind until, when

    its peaks stood upright and it donned a coat of mail from its night,

  11. it burst open, spewing rain, and left no

    gravelly valley-beds or gullies without streaming water.

  12. I praised the Commander of the Faithful, whom they called men

    to follow, and the best of men at defending their faith.

  13. You have remained, since your Lord entrusted you with their affairs,

    like the finest shepherd in tending his flock.

  14. By God's command, you repelled their enemy from them,

    and a barren year that spared neither offspring nor udder—

  15. a rainless year that winter passed by, scarcely

    sprinkling lowland or high ground with a little rain.

  16. You are the one for whom glory has a price

    beyond the reach of even open-handed men.

  17. When it grew dear, you bid higher for it, without wrongdoing,

    nor could you commit injustice or excess for glory.

  18. As for the sons of Faḍl, their perfection

    is how the Merciful further exalts those they begot.

  19. Sons of war, they bit into it whatever its state,

    and found in it neither baseness nor panic.

  20. They did not drive their tent-stakes into a refuge

    where hostile men could wrench them out.

  21. No tribe assailed them and returned unharmed,

    nor could any people patch what they had torn.

  22. So the sting of the Age of Ignorance flew away from them,

    and they did not bow a rib in their side before others.

  23. And you are the most richly endowed of men in wealth and parentage,

    the greatest in dominion and the keenest in hearing.

  24. No people who greeted them,

    while suffering hardship, went without your pledge of help.

  25. May the Lord of mankind add yet more to His bounty toward you,

    and greater scope in every quality He has given you.

Sol 6.1