O my tears, pour down like rain-laden clouds, drenching the cheeks with unbroken streams.
At the loss of the revered shaykh and imam, Ibn Taymiyyah, scion of the noble line.
An ascetic, a devoted worshipper—god-fearing and pure; his understanding cannot be weighed against other minds.
⦗151⦘ Ibn Taymiyyah was the unparalleled gem of his age; he had no equal to contend with him or even approach him.
All people were struck with grief at his passing, for he had gathered every branch of knowledge and legal judgment.
Peerless in learning, virtue, and renunciation, he never sought ostentation within the religion of Islam.
A sea of knowledge into whose depths every discerning seeker would dive, yet all humanity stood bewildered by its meanings.
He surpassed creation in knowledge and merits, becoming the imam of every imam.
Though his person has disappeared and departed, his soul having travelled to the Abode of Peace,
His merits and virtues remain, enduring through the passage of ages and years.
A master who rose by knowledge and forbearance—his enemies before him were like mere cattle.
How often the envious assailed him with treachery and oppression, yet he never recoiled from advancing.
A seeker of truth who feared no injustice, defending the pinnacle of Islam.
He feared neither kings nor common folk, nor the enemies (1) nor the fault-finders.
How many rulers he confronted with firmness (2) and resolve, hastening to act for Allah’s sake.
—until he said (3):
(1) F, K, T read: “nor the slaves with ….”
(2) K, T add: “pronounced with sukun (i.e., without the final vowel).”
(3) In F, K, T the elegy is complete—fifty-one lines; the text they give is:
When Ghazan came to him with a heart—
how do the jungle’s lions compare with a mighty lion?
He greeted him with cheerfulness and wide welcome,
with gifts, with honour, and with generosity.
He wrested from him a pledge for all the people:
safety for every inhabitant of al-Sham.
A truthful intention that Allah accepted,
so all those creatures obeyed him.
He sheltered them from harm in humility
and in submission to the One, the All-Knowing.
Say to whoever seeks glory and desires
a rank attained at the edge of the sword:
he is in the station of the prophets—know it;
so declared the Prophet of Tihama.
The world has lost him, together with religion
and knowledge and every ascetic and orphan.
How many fatwas reached him from every quarter,
questions that baffled every incisive scholar!
He solved them like the breeze, at once dispelling
the rust of sickness from its source.
He was an ocean to mankind; whoever dived in
came up with pearls, not with worthless flotsam.
Peerless among creation in every tafsir,
in hadith, and in all the sciences complete.
The shaykh of all Islam in renunciation and devotion,
in worship, piety, and fasting.
He was the mid-morning sun, the Nile for mankind,
the imam of knowledge and of dignified reserve.
Around him the scholars flocked,
pressing upon him in thronging crowds,
seeking that the fruit of his meanings be spoken,
drawing light from them amid the night’s darkness.
He watered their hearts with knowledge,
and you saw them drunk though they drank no wine.
Whenever I tried to forget my love for him,
longing led me back to him with a rein.
The full moon blushed before his radiance;
it begins to wane the moment it is full.
Listen, O fault-finder, by Allah, and understand
his qualities through the whole of my verse.
With him, in matters of truth, every vizier
stood equal to the lowliest commoner.
His excellence spread among all creation
with sciences like the swelling seas.
He was a full moon that shone upon the people with knowledge—
an imam: what an imam indeed!
They envied him at death for his noble character,
yet none of them escaped the grave.
The hands of Death carried him, in full justice,
to the gardens of eternity while tears flowed.
Oh, what an hour when he met Allah—
there he attained every hope and every aim.
He dwells now in the Garden of Bliss, honoured,
among maidens like pearls in canopied pavilions.
May Allah sanctify his spirit together with his brother’s
as long as dawn smiles upon the world.
O morning breeze, by Allah, convey
my greetings and peace to my beloved;
pass the lovers with mention of my name—
my sorrows, my wretchedness, my illness—
then describe what I now endure
of cares, of yearning, and of passion,
and say: your servant Mahmud has become
tears and sobs, like laden clouds.