Sol 6.1

  1. O lord, turn toward al-Sham.

    May my father be the ransom of Paradise and the Sacred House!

  2. And turn a glance toward her sanctuary,

    To heal her of the sickness that has afflicted her.

  3. Draw for her a keen blade of resolve, which for so long

    Was her defender in times past, by God.

  4. It fed al-Qabiji a swift and dreadful death,

    And made his water-carrier drink the cup of death.

  5. Then Ibn ʿUlwan rose high in her land,

    And Ibn Bustan grazed as livestock graze.

  6. Her deficient one added to her decline,

    The rabble's exemplar—rather, the commoners' sheikh.

  7. And the curtailed one became one of his followers,

    Following no imam—rather, himself an imam.

  8. So to you and to God she came,

    Lamenting her plight with streaming tears.

  9. She asks the lord for safety from them both,

    And from the lord comes fulfillment of her wish.

  10. Enough already of the calamity that befell her:

    Shamam, by God, had a pillar shattered because of it;

  11. It lost Ismaʿil, the mufti of her region,

    The imam, the scholar, the virtuous and noble man,

  12. The sheikh of Damascus's sheikhs—may he be watered

    By the rain-stars' downpour, its gentle showers unceasing.

  13. And may God preserve our lord for us,

    A pillar of enduring glory until the Resurrection.

Sol 6.1