Sol 6.1

  1. What is the opinion of mankind's sage, the nations' great scholar,

    mufti to both peoples, Arabs and non-Arabs,

  2. the age's pride, the era's leader, the finest of those

    whose sanctuary the mounts of resolve have sought from nearby,

  3. dazzling in merit, counsel, and bounty,

    and pure in lineage, forebears, and character,

  4. guiding mankind along truth's paths, for he has become

    their leader in truth—so attend to my words?

  5. For he is the imam we hope for, as we wait

    for the slaying of ignorance's Dajjal, who has declared my blood lawful.

  6. May God sustain him with nearness to Him, and extend for him

    a shade over the crown of Islam and the nations.

  7. Truly, religion, worldly life, and the people of both have been protected

    by his sword-sharp reed pen, the great dispeller of sorrows.

  8. Concerning a languishing man with whom separation's hands have toyed,

    and unjustly scattered his once-united company:

  9. he left al-Sham and his homelands—may they both be watered

    by a downpour of steady rain, like the clouds of my eyelid.

  10. He seeks a school in Rum, the abode of justice,

    and has not strayed from the people's time-honored path,

  11. in what they count a condition of apprenticeship,

    and a term of four years gone by.

  12. And his right was to be given it, hand to hand,

    as established in the code of their custom.

  13. How, then, was it permissible for our master and lord,

    the judge of the armies, to withhold it, though he is generous?

  14. Was that lawful for him under the upright sacred law,

    or is that a known rule, free of defect?

  15. Explain it to us, and dispel a darkness that has veiled

    the faces of our hopes, O dispeller of darkness.

  16. For we have spurred the mounts of resolve from a land

    far away toward you, hoping for your all-embracing kindness.

  17. Were it not for that, I would not accept Rum as a dwelling

    instead of al-Sham—may flowing rain water her.

  18. Have you heard of someone endowed with reason, living by it,

    who would ever travel to the land of Rum away from Iram?

  19. Yet whoever alights in your lofty abode sees

    that he has alighted between the Corner and the Sanctuary.

  20. My lord, give aid to a captive with few to help him,

    against a judge's tyranny, whose justice in judgment is suspect.

  21. Deaf, he did not heed the complaint; mute, he did not

    return an answer; and he was blind to the poor man's plight.

  22. And this is an ailing man's sigh, which has issued

    from a servant's breast to the foremost of all mankind.

  23. May your favors heal him of pain.

    May you ever remain in blessings joined to blessings.

  24. And be safe, and endure as long as a star travels by night and there rises

    the morning's gazelle, grazing on the stars in the darkness.

Sol 6.1