Sol 6.1

  1. You have grown angry, and fearsome is your anger,

    over a right an aggressor wrests away and steals.

  2. Is politics an art whose principles,

    among cunning tyrants, are deceit and lies?

  3. Leave them, their ways, and their conference:

    all they have read and written there serves oppression.

  4. And hold your posts in the difficult strait, and await

    their delegations there, arriving in succession and coming forward.

  5. Behind you are neighbors whose hostility has ceased;

    you strove for their goodwill, just as they strove for yours.

  6. And thus time decrees between you what

    neither kinship nor lineage decreed between you.

  7. O leaders of the East, the East has honor enough,

    and these titles and ranks are enough for you.

  8. Indeed, those who fled your onslaught have returned,

    to rival you after they were laid low,

  9. seeking help from the one who incited them in vain.

    And theirs is the guilt they bore and the sins they committed.

  10. Return to might after gentleness, for it is yours;

    might may accomplish what speeches cannot.

  11. The East has no right except within its strongholds;

    and right, overturned in the West, is a stranger there.

  12. Does your adversary command the verdict in Lausanne,

    while turmoil confronts him outside Lausanne?

  13. Curzon did not deliver for his nation,

    with terror and calamities barring what he seeks.

  14. What case has the adversary, when the days forsake him,

    against the noble victims, after they have prevailed?

  15. If they all wage war on you around your Mosul,

    they will quarrel before it as aggressors and fight one another.

  16. Its plentiful, overflowing oil is not your aim;

    rather, your aim is kinfolk, neighbors, and friends.

  17. You have never been accustomed to people being bargained over,

    as part of what the aggressor takes and what he gives.

  18. Would the Kurds desire independence for a time,

    after the Arabs have put their independence to the test?

  19. The Prophet is no ancestor of those who turned

    to the raider of his resting place and claimed kinship.

  20. And they are his path to the Sacred House,

    and his means of reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque.

  21. And many a rebel worshipped the world, as were worshipped

    those statues, idols, and sacred stones.

  22. In every valley he has a throne, built by a hand

    whose favor is wrath, whose kindness is hardship.

  23. It is nearly hurled away with its uneasy occupant,

    by the people's hostility, veiled taunts, and tumult.

  24. Does he cast off the highest obedience, only to be owned

    by brocade and gold from that plunder,

  25. and abandon the heavenly assembly for a company

    that slithers like a viper or slinks away like a wolf?

  26. For Ankara I have my conscience's whispered counsel, and I have

    suspicions and doubts today concerning Mecca.

  27. Hearts incline toward the Sacred House, but do not

    love a tribe that pounced upon its guardians.

  28. It complained of neither drought nor poverty, that it should need

    rain-bearing stars and clouds from anyone but its Creator.

  29. The secrets of traitors have come to light and become known,

    even if traitors disguise themselves and hide.

  30. The child in the cradle is purer among his clan

    than an adult whose mother and father have suffered through him.

  31. O neighbors of the Turks—the past is a lesson for you—

    you shunned them, and they overlooked it after reproaching you.

  32. They and you are alike in your dealings:

    if you keep away, they keep away; or if you draw near, they draw near.

  33. And had your homelands been yours alone, they would have been content;

    but they belong to invaders who encamped around them.

  34. Did you secede, or gain independence—and to

    freedom or to bondage did they lead you?

  35. Had you returned to goodwill, you would have had

    a return to your companions, and a homecoming.

  36. Whatever well-being you seek for yourselves,

    tomorrow you will not surpass what they sought for you.

  37. And a call for the restorer of the East's former course—

    Damascus surged with it, and Aleppo took comfort.

  38. It traveled as though fleets escorted it,

    like mountains, with the clamorous host aboard.

  39. Its reach passed beyond India, and it was echoed

    beyond the seas by the clamorous roar of thunder.

  40. I truly fear for nations a day

    when iron and flame will make an end of them.

  41. Then no peoples will be terrified by what they have lost,

    nor will any peoples enjoy what they have gained.

  42. And a tyrant will seek molten metal and zaqqum,

    tormented by thirst or bitten by hunger.

  43. Kingdoms of the East and Islam, a reminder:

    for the East is sorrowful, and Islam sobs.

  44. Where are fidelity and the covenant among you,

    while the House is plundered and Jerusalem is seized?

  45. Men's glory is measured by how much they have given

    of free men's blood, not by the tears they shed.

  46. Defend the precious homeland, and honor

    for which sacrificing lives is only part of what is due.

  47. And whoever desires a sweet life of honor,

    then the earth will bear him free, or the shooting stars will.

  48. O envoy of the East, roaming without support,

    awaiting the outcome in the West and keeping watch:

  49. the fate of every people, after its campaign,

    is what the noble youths inscribed in Faruq.

  50. After judgment, the final say became theirs,

    in all affairs, whether the people were earnest or jested.

  51. Where is peace, and where are those who work for it,

    though it is the righteous people's hope and desire?

  52. Each extends his aim beyond the unseen,

    and does not know what Rajab will bring.

Sol 6.1