O you whose learning sent the pretentious rhetoricians back mute
and loosed every tongue to voice your praise;
O tree of excellence whose very root is fragrant (1),
whose lofty branches bear the sweetest fruit;
O scholar—nay, O ocean—how many a learned man you left bewildered,
turning even the most eloquent speaker tongue-tied;
O seal of the men of virtue, your knowledge is miraculous:
it dazzled all creation, and I withdrew from it a convinced believer.
If all this were merely memorized, your span of time would be too narrow to contain it—
indeed, were all of time devoted to it, it would still overflow;
Rather, it is an outpouring of grace that keeps hurling forth (2) the truth,
a beam cast from the light of divine friendship and radiance.
You raised an edifice founded upon piety and the Lord’s good pleasure;
small wonder, then, that the structure rose so high.
You stirred the dust, O one whose dust no rival can surpass,
outstripping the foremost men of merit (3) long before we came along.
Patiently you strove in the cause of the All-Sovereign,
enduring injury until the glad tidings of bliss arrived:
“Those who strive against Our enemy for Our sake—
We shall surely guide them to Our paths.”
Allah has praised the scholars in the very text of His Book,
and you are most deserving of the praise intended.
It is no marvel that you were tried by an envious foe;
a noble soul is ever tested by the sons of adultery.
I pour out my complaint to you—indeed, you are the root of my complaint—
for excessive hurt has touched us through your loss.
Our tears have overflowed out of sorrow (4),
and the wasting of grief has spoken what our hearts conceal.
May clouds of divine approval water that spirit,
and may it settle in the Gardens of Eden as its everlasting home.