Sol 6.1

  1. Can I recover after the calamity of your loss and sing?

    I shall wander in longing until you return, Muhammad.

  2. You left your people, while the nights were a sharp sword,

    near their necks, menacing them.

  3. And you left them at the first step toward

    what you hoped for; the flock is scattered.

  4. Where is the light to guide them? Where is the clear

    water to quench their thirst? Where is the hand to lead them?

  5. Alas for them! The land is a thorny waste,

    quaking, and the sea is frothing and foaming.

  6. You were the leader and died with a stricken liver; for none

    among the living withers but the liver-stricken.

  7. You feared no obstacle but death

    that might turn you from your purpose in the path of God.

  8. You issued rulings to spur them toward what most benefits them,

    and those rulings helped you in that and brought success.

  9. And you were their provision for the day of their struggle,

    if this ill-starred age betrayed them.

  10. You interpreted the Quran, using it to call

    the sons of your faith to heed their age, and to equip them.

  11. You debated the eloquent on their behalf, while

    the bold grew fearful and the ardent fell still.

  12. You promoted sound language among them,

    after they had loved feeble speech and left the sound unsought.

  13. You upheld consultation when it was thrown off course by the

    minds, stringing its bow for them and aiming true.

  14. You composed precious books for humankind,

    polishing their intellects with them and renewing them.

  15. You accepted no position in government

    except to show how a noble leader judges.

  16. Who is there for leadership, politics, and eminence,

    if the man of experience shuns them?

  17. Titles gave you only lofty resolve

    filling all existence, and bounties that never run out.

  18. You showed the people of the East that their betterment

    is assured by their own selves, not by kings.

  19. You explained to the vanquished the cause of his weakness

    and his conqueror's practiced skill; he resolved to emulate him,

  20. after he had spent the nights afraid,

    anxiously watchful, or full of complaint and rancor.

  21. A group misled him, seeing his salvation

    in cursing the oppressor and making an uproar.

  22. You reconciled the two: one with plantings, as

    you hoped, and one with a livelihood, obeying and reaping.

  23. They remembered your counsel, which, had

    their leaders preserved it before, they would not have grown fierce as lions.

  24. Without you, they would have followed defiance and fought,

    making themselves targets—or submitted and been enslaved.

  25. Had five among them followed your example,

    glory and eminence would have returned to them.

  26. Some peoples demand a constitution; yet had

    you assumed rule over Caesar's peoples, they would have rested content.

  27. Tomorrow, its zealots and defenders will wish

    they had given you free rein over their affairs and bound themselves,

  28. and you had ruled among them as a just autocrat,

    uniting their ranks, though you were one man alone.

  29. You won what no crowned ruler could ever win,

    hard to bridle and backed by armies.

  30. People have indeed gone to excess in their desires; nothing

    in the universe matters to them except gold.

  31. Their doubts had laid a crust over their minds

    concerning religion; they impugned certainty and called it folly.

  32. They imagined it held people back from

    knowledge and civilization, and grew obstinate.

  33. They raced through the wide expanse of their conjectures

    and doubts, floundering, and fell into unbelief.

  34. Until, when they reached the limit, you debated them

    and brought them back in submission, and they affirmed God's oneness.

  35. After you made your reason the arbiter among them,

    does any person of reason remain in doubt?

  36. You were so fair that no one secretly harbors toward a Muslim

    rancor—neither a convert to Christianity nor a convert to Judaism.

  37. You did not undertake reform until

    you had assessed the strength of those who scheme and corrupt.

  38. You made pardoning your enemies a practice

    for those with power, charging them to follow it.

  39. War is not the slaughter of enemies, but rather

    the sage's stripping people of what they had grown used to.

  40. You were no murderous adversary in battle,

    making every rebel drink death.

  41. What excuse has one with such great confidence in himself,

    if the envious find no excuse in his eyes?

  42. With what medicine can one be treated who

    rejects the proof, though it stands embodied,

  43. and regards travel among kingdoms as an innovation,

    when you journeyed as a critical observer, inspecting?

  44. Who but you kept vigil, while calamities surrounded

    the Far Maghreb, a sentinel keeping watch?

  45. Had your life lasted another span, and had you done what

    you resolved upon, you would have preserved a realm falling apart.

  46. Do you take up their burdens, yet

    nothing pleases them but paralyzing inactivity?

  47. What harm would it do you to withhold your help, if

    a house or a mosque hid you from them?

  48. Their rancor would not cool, O their sword,

    until you lay sheathed in their midst.

  49. You spoke in candid verse, bidding farewell,

    and left it the most exalted, the most glorious.

  50. Would anyone squander it, when it is a testament

    to his own people, enjoining the truth that cannot be denied?

  51. Such is a life of earnest endeavor among a people who

    trifled, while others worked earnestly, hunting for prey.

  52. O you who exalt Muhammad, walk in

    his footsteps; the path is smoothed.

  53. Today poetry reveals the lesson of your yesterday;

    so muster your strength for tomorrow, and tomorrow shall be yours.

Sol 6.1