Sol 6.1

  1. The days grind your heart to pieces,

    And the hours whittle away your body.

  2. Death calls you with a truthful summons:

    Listen, my friend: it is you I want—you!

  3. I see you loving a treacherous bride,

    Whom the discerning have irrevocably divorced.

  4. You sleep your whole life—woe to you!—snoring

    With her, until you die and then awaken.

  5. How long will you remain deceived, and until

    When will you fail to turn away from her—and until when?

  6. Abu Bakr, I have called you, if you would answer,

    To what holds your good fortune, if you understand:

  7. To knowledge, through which you become a leader,

    Obeyed when you forbid and when you command.

  8. And you clear the dimness clouding your eye,

    And it guides you to the path when you stray.

  9. From it you bear a crown in your assembly,

    And it clothes you in beauty when you go abroad.

  10. Its benefit reaches you as long as you live,

    And its treasure remains yours when you depart.

  11. It is the sharp, Indian-forged sword that never glances off;

    With it you strike the vital parts of whomever you attack.

  12. And a treasure for which you need fear no thief,

    Light to carry, found wherever you are.

  13. It increases the more you spend from it,

    And diminishes if you close your hand tightly upon it.

  14. Had you tasted a little of its sweetness,

    You would have preferred learning and striven hard.

  15. No desire you obeyed would distract you from it,

    Nor a world whose glitter bewitched you.

  16. No lovely garden would divert you from it,

    Nor a secluded chamber whose gazelles you adored.

  17. For the soul's nourishment is the spirits of meanings,

    Not your eating and drinking.

  18. So persevere in it and pursue it earnestly;

    If God grants it to you, you will obtain it.

  19. And if you are granted great mastery of it,

    And people say you have surpassed others,

  20. Do not feel safe from God's questioning about it,

    With the rebuke: You knew—but did you act?

  21. For the essence of knowledge is truly fearing God,

    Not having it said that you have become a leader.

  22. And goodness is your ample robe—not that

    You should be seen wearing the robe of wrongdoing.

  23. If knowledge brings you no good,

    It would have been better to remain ignorant.

  24. And if your understanding casts you into abysses,

    Would that—would that—you had never understood!

  25. You will reap ignorance from the fruits of inaction,

    And grow smaller in people's eyes as you grow older.

  26. If ignorant, you are absent though still alive;

    If learned, you remain present though you have departed.

  27. You will remember my words to you after a while,

    And yearn for them when distracted from them.

  28. You will surely bite in regret over them,

    But regret will not help you when you regret.

  29. When you see your companions in the sky,

    Risen above you while you have sunk low,

  30. Return to my counsel and put aside indolence:

    Through slowness you will not attain what you seek.

  31. Pay no heed to your wealth, and turn away from it;

    True wealth is only what you have learned.

  32. An ignorant man has no significance among people,

    Even if sovereignty over Iraq should come to him.

  33. Your knowledge will speak for you in an assembly,

    And your words will one day be written down, if you write.

  34. Raising buildings will not benefit you

    If through ignorance you have demolished yourself.

  35. In ignorance you placed wealth above knowledge;

    By your life, you were unjust in that judgment.

  36. Revelation's explicit words set a gulf between them;

    You will know it when you read Ta-Ha.

  37. If the rich man raises a banner of wealth,

    You have surely raised the banner of your knowledge.

  38. And if the rich man sits upon cushions,

    You have surely sat upon the stars.

  39. And if he rides fine, marked steeds,

    You have ridden the paths of piety.

  40. However many virgin beauties he deflowers,

    How many virgins of wisdom have you deflowered!

  41. Poverty will not harm you at all

    If you have come to know your Lord.

  42. What goodness He holds for you

    When you make camp in the courtyard of obedience to Him!

  43. Receive my sound advice with acceptance;

    If you turn away from it, you have lost.

  44. And if you observe it in word and deed,

    And trade with God through it, you will profit.

  45. This world amounts to nothing:

    It grieves you for an age and pleases you briefly.

  46. Its utmost extent, if you reflect upon it,

    Is like your shadow, or your dream when you dream.

  47. You are imprisoned in it, yet you love it;

    How can you love that in which you are imprisoned?

  48. It feeds you food, and before long

    It will eat from you what you ate from it.

  49. You become naked if you wear its clothes,

    And clothed if you cast its garments off.

  50. Every day you witness a friend's burial,

    As though what you witnessed were not meant for you.

  51. You were not created to build it up, but

    To pass through it—so strive for what you were created for.

  52. If it is demolished, add further to its demolition,

    And fortify your religion as much as you can.

  53. Do not grieve over what you have missed of it

    If you have triumphed in your hereafter.

  54. What you gained in it will not benefit you—

    The perishable—if you are denied the everlasting.

  55. Do not laugh heedlessly with fools,

    For you will weep if you have laughed.

  56. How can you rejoice while you are a pledge,

    Not knowing whether you will be redeemed or forfeited?

  57. Ask your Lord for right guidance in it,

    And be sincere in your asking when you ask.

  58. When you prostrate to Him, call out in acknowledgment

    With what Dhu al-Nun, son of Matta, called to Him.

  59. Keep knocking at His door; perhaps He

    Will open His door to you if you knock.

  60. Remember Him often on earth, tirelessly,

    So you may be remembered in heaven when you remember.

  61. Do not say that youth leaves you ample time;

    Reflect on how many little ones you have buried.

  62. And tell me: O adviser, you have greater need

    Of your own advice, had you considered with reason.

  63. You tear me apart with blame for negligence,

    Yet you have spent your lifetime in negligence.

  64. In my youth you frighten me with death,

    Yet it does not cross your mind now you are old.

  65. In youth you followed a better-guided path;

    Why have you fallen back after your hair turned gray?

  66. I have not plunged into the sea of sins

    As you plunged into it until you drowned.

  67. I never drank Umm Dafr's heady wine,

    Yet you drank it until you were drunk.

  68. I never settled in a valley of injustice,

    Yet you settled there and grew careless.

  69. I did not grow up in an age offering benefit,

    Yet you grew up in it and gained no benefit.

  70. You have accompanied great guiding figures,

    Yet I never saw you follow those you accompanied.

  71. The Book called you, but you did not answer it;

    Gray hair restrained you, but you did not awaken.

  72. Acting childish is ugly in a young man,

    And uglier still is an old man pretending to be young.

  73. You deserve censure more than I do;

    Had wrongdoers kept silent, you would not have spoken.

  74. Blame yourself, and do not blame another

    For a fault: yours is the self most deserving of your blame.

  75. Even if your eyes wept blood in fear

    Of your sin, I would not tell you that you were safe.

  76. Who can guarantee you safety when you are a servant

    Who was commanded, yet neither complied nor obeyed?

  77. You are heavy with sins, yet do not fear,

    In your ignorance, being light when you are weighed.

  78. You feel concern for one persisting in sins,

    And pity him, yet have not pitied yourself.

  79. You turned backward and stumbled blindly;

    By your life, had you arrived, you would not have turned back.

  80. Even if you met your Lord without a sin,

    And He scrutinized your account, you would perish.

  81. He would not wrong you in any deed, but

    It is difficult to fulfill what you have undertaken.

  82. Had you come alone on the Day of Judgment,

    And seen the varied abodes there,

  83. You would have felt immense regret and anguish

    Over what you wasted in your life.

  84. You flee the midday heat and shield yourself from it;

    Why, then, have you not fled from Hell?

  85. You cannot endure its mildest torment;

    Even if you were iron, you would melt within it.

  86. So do not be misled: the matter is serious,

    Not as you reckoned or imagined.

  87. Abu Bakr, you have exposed the least of my faults,

    And concealed the greater part, the bulk of it.

  88. Say whatever disgraces you wish of me,

    And double them—you have spoken truly.

  89. Whatever faults you find in me, so deeply do I know

    My inner self that it is as though you praised me.

  90. Do not accept faults: they are a disgrace

    So great that it brings hatred upon a person.

  91. They cast the distinguished down from the Pleiades,

    And replace his place above with one below.

  92. Just as acts of obedience make the bright stars your sandals,

    And bring you near, however far you were.

  93. They spread a good name for you throughout the world,

    And you are found righteous in it wherever you are.

  94. You walk its shoulders with dignity,

    And reap praise from what you have planted.

  95. You are not yet known for any flaw,

    Nor have you stained your robe since growing up.

  96. You have not raced in falsehood's arena,

    Nor galloped there, nor trotted.

  97. If you do not keep away from it, you will become entangled;

    Who can secure your escape once you are entangled?

  98. It will stain what was pure in you, until

    It is as though you had never been pure before.

  99. You will become your sin's captive, bound in fetters;

    How can you find release once you are captive?

  100. Fear your own kind, and be wary of them

    As you fear lions and the leopard.

  101. Mingle with them, and part from them warily;

    Be like al-Samiri when you make contact.

  102. If they behave ignorantly toward you, say: Peace.

    Perhaps you will remain safe if you do so.

  103. Who can guarantee you safety in an age

    That reaches even mountain goats—unless you are protected?

  104. Do not remain in a settlement where oppression

    Kills the heart, unless you are shackled.

  105. Go west: the stranger is in demand;

    And go east if you have choked on your saliva.

  106. Even if you were above the prince there,

    In eminence and pride—you yourself.

  107. If you part from it and leave it

    For the abode of peace, you have found safety.

  108. And if you honor it and look from within it

    With reverence, you have dishonored yourself.

  109. I have gathered counsels for you: follow them

    Throughout your life, for they are the best you could follow.

  110. I have prolonged my reproach and added to it,

    Because you have prolonged your idleness.

  111. Do not follow my shortcomings and forgetfulness;

    Follow my counsel to you, if you are rightly guided.

  112. I have appended six fine verses to it;

    Before these, it numbered one hundred and six.

Sol 6.1