and be content with the merest share of this world; persevere in noble deeds, and travel on like one who has cast off every attachment. (1)
Seek out good works, and keep the company of those who do them—winning their affection while shunning the people of frivolity. (2)
Never reproach a parting soul who weeps for his loved ones; if you cannot ease his pain, at least show him mercy.
Leave the man stricken by separation and his words of blame, for censure cuts more sharply than a well-honed Indian blade.
Why linger when the night-journey calls, while our companions have pressed ahead and lie exposed upon the barren plain?
Since their departure, the valley of al-‘Aqīq has never turned green again, nor have the grey doves cooed above Burqat Thahmid. (3)
As for me, I shall surely weep; and if my tears run dry, I will pour out the very core of my thirsty heart.
Where is the helper when calamities descend? Where is the supporter now that the one who used to help is gone?
Do you not know?—the man you once knew has gone his way, confined to a narrow, sealed grave.
Where is the champion of Ahmad’s law? Where is the one who traced with certainty the path of Muhammad?
The imam, the scholar, the erudite master has died—by his guidance every learned man of every people found direction.
Who will confront the Jews and the Christians after him, hurling at them his precise arguments?
Ask their own religious judge about him—has he not awoken wrapped in the ignominy of his Judaizing?
Piety shaped every stage of his life; it bowed before him and yielded of its own accord.
He inherited renunciation from one noble ancestor after another, and knowledge as a legacy—one master bequeathing it to another.
If ever you pass by Mount Qasiyun, pause upon the soil that holds the grave of that unparalleled scholar.