The shade of patience beckoned me to bear the sorrow of his passing,
yet my eyes still dispatched messengers of tears, one after another.

Taqi al-Din Aḥmad, you established a lofty precedent,
and through your generosity you opened wide the avenues of honor.

O Shāfiʿī of the age, unrivaled in the accuracy of transmission,
you scattered pearls upon the ages with every word you spoke.

Content at heart, you renounced the world in devotion,
abandoning it and choosing instead its rival—the Hereafter.

You poured over the passing days an ocean of virtues and knowledge,
so that every enterprise gained profit and every wage multiplied in reward.

I marvel at a grave whose soil encloses your body—
can mere earth contain within itself both the sun and the sea?

You were conveyed from this world to the shade of a garden,
attaining what the wakeful eye had longed for.

There you beheld the bloom of ever-increasing favor,
and were clad in brocade that delights the very glance.

You had long been armored in the garments of praise and piety,
white as morning light, only to exchange them for green robes. (1)

Should your enemies report some misguidance about you,
their narration is but a tale whose transmitters never grasped its truth.

And if, in ignorance, they cast you into prison,
your rank only rose as theirs declined.

For it is only jewels that remain hidden among mankind;
from the darkness of oysters the pearl is drawn.

O questioner about his knowledge and qualities: he is an ocean—
let anyone who would describe the sea stand amazed. (2)

He is the life-giving raincloud that turns back every blight from the meadow;
indeed, the very breezes grow sweeter while praising his virtues. (3)

He rose above Ḥātim in liberality and outshone ʿĀṣim in recitation,
thus surpassing both the feeder of guests and the master of reading.