لو كنت في ديني من الأبطال — أبو إسحاق الإلبيري

If I were among the heroes in my faith,

I would be neither slack nor idle.

And I would have donned from it an ample coat of armor,

Woven from righteous deeds.

But I stripped the bows of piety

Of their arrows, so they shot without shafts.

And the enemy shot his arrow and struck me,

Since I had not fortified a shield for combat.

So I am like one who meets a battalion unarmed,

In a narrow pass, exposed to battle.

Were it not for hope of pardon, I would be like one quenching

The agony of thirst by sipping a shimmering mirage.

The back of my head has grayed; it is time I mended my ways,

If I were to heed the gray at the back of my head.

And had I been clear-sighted when it came upon me,

I would have known its arrival meant my departure.

Then I would have looked to provisions for my abiding home,

And asked my Lord to loosen my fetter.

For how often I resolved to repent, only to be denied it,

Since I was unworthy of it, and changed my mind.

And that pains me, yet I

Am turned about in the grasp of the Most High.

And I have joined myself to a world that will uproot me,

With the setting of its stars and the eclipse of my crescent.

It has engrossed the beguiled among its people with its temptations,

And it is absurd to be engrossed in absurdity.

No one loses more in a bargain than a scholar

Whom the world has toyed with alongside the ignorant.

So he scatters his faith like Saba's scattered people,

And casts it off in his zeal to amass wealth.

There is no good in unlawful gain, and seldom

Can one who earns lawful wealth hope for deliverance.

Never have I heard of a pauper to be branded tomorrow,

With fire on his forehead for his poverty.

And if you want a true account of who is branded by it,

Then read the surah that follows al-Anfal.

The scales grow heavy only for a man

Whose shoulders have grown light of burdens.

So take what suffices, and possess no surplus;

For the surplus—you will be questioned about it, and how!

And leave fine cloaks and mounts to their owners,

And be content with rags and wearing sandals.

For they and you, our poverty and their wealth,

Do not remain fixed or endure in any state.

And roam the lands to see the traces of those

Princes who once ruled them.

The wind of death swept upon them and scattered them,

As raging winds scatter a curved dune of sand.

And the pulpits shook beneath them after

They had stood firm, their occupants above them like mountains.

And halt your young she-camel a while at their ruins,

And beware of ghouls there, for your own sake.

For how many a speckled, deadly viper is there, and how many

Oryxes and gazelles were once there!

And how many a troop went out from there, morning and evening,

For war, led by the father of lion cubs!

So their bonds were severed and torn apart,

Yet formerly they had been like a string of pearls.

And when you reach their graves, ask them

About the terrors they encountered within them.

Then they will tell you, if you understand, through their condition,

By a message like revelation, not by speech:

Indeed, we are held here in pledge until the Day of Recompense,

For the crimes of words and deeds.

Whoever neither heeds his Lord nor fears Him—

May his hands perish; he has no protector.