ديار أحبائي عليك سلاميا — أحمد الكاشف

O home of my beloved, peace be upon you.

Faithful to your bond, I call—if only you could hear my plea.

But can the deserted dwelling hear—the one

whose spacious court, once filled with its people, lies empty today?

It has been effaced; only a trace of the campsite appears to me,

hollowed by the hands of decay, facing the wind.

It meets the morning rains, lamenting the violence of their fall;

even the frail ruin may complain of the assailing storms.

Yet I still hope that you will answer,

that perhaps I may learn where they have gone—if only I might.

Are they in their Najd, or in Tihama? For within me

yearning for them brims in the heart and sears it.

Did they willingly answer separation’s caller when he summoned them

to abandon you, or did they answer the herald against their will?

Answer me: my vigil beside you has lasted all year;

long have I called, and long has my questioning endured.

My companions left me alone, deep in thought

upon your sands, weary of how long I remained.

I shield myself neither from the scorching noonday heat,

nor from night, dark with its tresses spread,

nor from the ceaseless downpour, engulfing as the sea,

whose far-reaching torrent is unleashed against me,

nor from the raging winds that toss me upon

their shoulders when they blow, scattering dust.

I have stood offering you my greetings, and thus

I shall spend my life among those ruins.

I weep for my beloved with tears I have freely shed

to express my torments, however precious those tears may be.

I ask every bird and flashing cloud for news of them,

and before everything I encounter, I weep for them.

My beloved, the separation has lasted long—and separation is death

to one who, faithful like me, keeps the covenant.

My endurance once quenched some of my anguish;

but now, because of you, I have lost all endurance.

Is there no news of you to cool my burning thirst?

For I find nothing else that can heal me.

A choking dread is lodged within me: that death may come before such news.

I commend you to God’s protection from the evil afflicting me.

My eyes have pledged to water your homes with tears,

though I find none among you aware of it.

I called—and people have never seen a caller like me

who strove in the path of good, only to return weeping.

In what I sought, I suffered the worst impediments,

which every noble soul has come to suffer.

I endured them until every seeing person beheld

my suffering as an image manifest before his eyes;

until even the boulder pitied me, and the hearts of my enemies

were rent by the violence of my cries.

Though the reproachers persist, I shall not forget

my covenants, nor abandon what I strive to do.

Never have I departed from this cause carefree and unconcerned,

nor slept apart from it with closed eyes, heedless.

If it were possible to forsake my aims,

I would pass my evenings tranquil at heart and safe.

But mine is a soul that seeks the heights,

even if misery lies for me in that desire.

God guided it there; so at His command

it strives—and God suffices the soul as guide.

I gazed upon the world with the eye of insight

until today all that had been hidden stood revealed.

I returned with sorrow that nearly destroyed my heart,

grim-faced, agitated in mind, and lamenting,

because I saw evil honored within it,

strong among its children and ever advancing.

They came to regard another’s weakness as grounds

for robbing him of his right, now brought within their grasp.

They all proceeded alike, ravaging him, though

you might suppose them, one day, enemies to one another.

It was they who brought the roads of life nearer—but only

so they might reach us, bringing near what had been distant.

They linked the means of passage only to sever

our means of livelihood, already grown frail.

Steadfastly they sought to seize our lands,

and none among them who persevered and sprang to strive failed.

Upon the ruins of our former glory they built

an impregnable edifice whose height surpassed the stars.

They barred us from what we hope for and diverted

from us a flowing source of sustenance.

We became submissive to them, like slaves—

thralls who fear their violence and assaults.

They lead us to water only when it is muddied,

and send us away from it still parched.

We behold their glory filling our eyes, and desire

its like among us, rising to rival it.

Yet we sleep through what we hope for and attain it only

as a phantom that passes through our dreams by night.

We amuse ourselves with it until we awaken, and then we see

no trace of it remaining among the worlds.

So we lament like a bereaved mother who has lost her only child,

finding no one gentle with us, nor anyone to console us.

This has become our settled habit—and it is a sickness

for which ignorance refuses to let us find a healer, ever.

May God cure every nation of such maladies;

among us, it has never ceased spreading just as it is.

Yet I do not despair of its cure,

and my hope in that remains strong.

Children of the East, I call you to the finest path,

one that will restore life’s freshness to you once more.

Vie, then, with the children of the West, who imitated

your forefathers, so that you may attain the heights.

You have more right to emulate your ancestors than do

enemies who robbed you of a splendor once radiant.

Does it please you that sacred things should be taken captive

and find among you no defender of their sanctuary?

Do you delight in seeing the paths effaced,

while we see no guardian among you, children of the East?

You possess in religion a keen-edged sword

that, when you draw it, blunts the sharpest blades.

With it revive the Prophet’s path, and restore

a station for God’s religion that has become worn away.

Water it until you restore its youth

in full bloom; otherwise it will live thirsty and withered.

Enough sorrow has come to it from your past silence,

your neglect of its cause—and that has afflicted me enough.

Make the religion well pleased with you by following its path;

how beautiful the world is when the religion rests content.

Then shall we live in bliss and freshness,

safe from the aggression of enemies and the assaults of fate.