عجبا لمن ترك الحقيقة جانبا — أبو زيد الفازازي

How strange that one should cast the truth aside

and become estranged from the masters of sound judgment,

exchanging the manifest truth before him

for whatever speciously reasoned falsehood he pleased, though absent—

after truth had become more piercing than arrows,

fiercer in assault and keener in its cutting edge.

Do not let the precedents of those before you deceive you

until you see what consequences their adducing brings.

For perhaps imagination grows intense, while passion hinders it

from what is right and becomes dominant.

How many a learned imam has had his understanding harmed

by books that muster battalions of error.

So cast Plato aside, or Aristotle,

and those like them; you will tread a broad, open road.

Leave the philosophers—that blameworthy lot, all of them—

and their doctrines; you will reach the more rightful, necessary truth.

O seeker of demonstrative proof within their propositions,

how grievous to me that you should cultivate a byway!

You have turned from salvation’s shore, plunging deep

into a sea of ruin that saves no drowning man.

The proof became clear, yet you gained nothing from its clarity

until you made painstaking refinement an adulterant in it.

Consider with your reason: do you see any professed philosopher

among those before you except a lying pretender?

The burdens of the Sacred Law exhausted him through their rigor,

so he apostatized, stripped bare, while thinking himself a despoiler.

Ask God for protection from error and for sufficiency,

lest I stray from the clear highway.

To You the hand is outstretched in every hardship,

and from You I have found kindness in every calamity.

You are a refuge while all humankind stands far apart;

and in hope, is the impossible like the inevitable?

Then fulfill my hope in You, O Lord, and shield me from

an enemy’s gloating or a companion’s ill-treatment.

Whence could I fear harm from an enemy

when Your shelter enfolds me, ample on every side?

How many a distress You have rescued me from its depths,

when it was a choking thorn between my innards and my ribs.

I possess no strength, nor have I any stratagem,

except my fair hope in the One whose gifts are beautiful.

O Rescuer of the desperate when he calls,

come to my aid, for all my paths have been closed against me.

My hope in You is my capital, and its profit

is my renunciation of created beings—the loftiest of gifts.

When they are powerless to benefit even themselves,

to place hope in them is among the lying delusions.

O You who have shown me kindness in the past, You are able

to deal gently with my present state and grant a good outcome.

Indeed, I hope from You for what befits You,

though I am a habitual sinner, laden with faults.

So bless the Chosen One from the House of Hashim,

the leader of all creation when calamities grow severe.