Do you suppose, O peerless scholar, that you know
the searing anguish and affliction that consume us?
Alas for that religion, that god-fearing piety,
and for that open-handedness(1) whose very breadth announced your praise;
Alas for you—yet what can lamentation avail?—
my ardent longing for you has shaken the core of my being;
Alas for you: my grief has banished sleep from my eyes,
so great are my sorrows and so heavy my toil.(2)
After you the seas of knowledge have ebbed, and humankind
wanders in heedlessness, O master of the scholars.
May my father be your ransom! You died alone,
cut off from your loved ones—the last remnant of the righteous.
An ocean of learning that embraced every virtue,
you soared as high as the brilliant stars of Orion.
Unique in every branch of knowledge—none beneath your rank could match you—
for the loftiness of your station was the summit of summits.
Even your enemies bore witness to your excellence,
and by it you towered over all your peers.
Shaykh of the disciplines, follower of the first generations
who followed the Messenger in hardship and in ease;
Leader of earth’s people, who laid bare for them
the paths(3) of guidance through authentic reports;
A man of righteous works, of courage and piety,
of generosity, blessings, and manifold favors.
He never turned away the seeker of his bounty
until he had fulfilled for him every hope.
He kept his couch at a distance, bowing, prostrating,
or remembering Allah in the darkness of night.
To the enemy his taste was bitter as colocynth upon the tongue,
yet to his companions he was sweeter than honey.