His adversaries have been none but a hypocrite, or another who has veered from the straight path (1).
They tried to do with him what Huyayy ibn Akhtab once attempted against the Chosen Messenger;
yet they met, at his hand, the same might that Marhab’s head encountered from al-Murtadā in battle (2).
So hold fast, Abū al-ʿAbbās, to the religion; cling to the cord of guidance, and you will subdue and prevail over your foes.
Fear not the scheming of the enemy, for they are nothing but bewildered, wavering men.
Their ranks are a rabble of grasping opportunists and craven weaklings (3)—a Musaylima among them seeks shelter behind an Ashʿab—
whereas your army is made up of angels, dwellers of heaven, who send you aid, procession after procession.
And anyone who has sold his soul to Allah will never heed the scolding of a fault-finder.
They are lions: when the people of misguidance assemble, every youth among them counts as a full squadron (4).
If envious rivals deny the loftiness of your merit, by my father’s life my astonishment at them only increases.
Can any sound mind reject the brilliance of broad daylight while the sun’s radiance is still unveiled?
O goal we seized without a single ruin—how many a ruin has barred mankind from its aims!
By the resolve of Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad the terrifying calamities of the age are repelled (5),
and in drought we seek the clouds through his very countenance, to wake amid meadows as lush as his own courtyard.