—the throats, and hearts have leapt to the gullet. I have taken leave of your father and my master with a farewell after which there is no further meeting (1); I kissed his face on my own behalf and on yours, and consigned him to Allah alone (2), bereft of resource, weak in strength, content with Allah’s decree. There is no might and no power except with Allah.
At the gate stand marshalled troops and burnished weapons (3), yet none of them can ward off affliction, nor can anything (4) repel destiny. The eye weeps (5), the heart is humbled, and we utter only what pleases the Lord; truly, O Yūsuf, we are grieved for you (6).
As for admonitions, you have no need of them; and as for strategic opinions, the calamity has distracted me from them. Concerning the emerging course of affairs: if concord is reached, then you will have lost nothing but his noble person; but if matters take another turn, then of the disasters that lie ahead, the lightest of them is his death (7).
Al-ʿAlam al-Shātānī (8) has composed a poem on the occasion, whose opening verse reads:
“I see victory yoked to your yellow banner;
So march forth and rule the world, for you are most worthy of it.”
(1) Ibn Khallikan reads: “wa-qad” (“and indeed”).
(2) Ibn Khallikan reads: “ila Allah taʿala” (“to Allah, Exalted be He”).
(3) Ibn Khallikan reads: “al-maʿidah” (“the stomach”).
(4) Ibn Khallikan reads: “malik” (“king”).
(5) Ibn Khallikan reads: “wa-tadmaʿ” (“and tears well up”).
(6) Ibn Khallikan reads: “wa-innā ʿalayka maḥzunūna yā Yūsuf” (“and we are indeed grieved for you, O Yusuf”).
(7) Ibn Khallikan adds: “wa-huwa al-hawl al-ʿaẓīm, wa-s-salām” (“and that is the great terror; and peace”).
(8) This is ʿAlam al-Din Abū ʿAlī al-Hasan b. Saʿīd b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shatānī, the littérateur, whose nisba derives from the fortress of Shatān in the Diyar Bakr region. Born in 510 AH/1116–17 CE, he travelled to Baghdad, studied law at the Nizamiyya, attended the lectures of many shaykhs, journeyed several times to Damascus, and finally settled in Mosul. He died in 579 AH/1183 CE, as recorded in al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, fol. 78 (Ahmad III 2917/1), and in al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, 7/61. Further notices appear in al-ʿImād al-Iṣfahānī, Kharīda (Syrian section), 2/361; Abū Shāma, al-Rawḍatayn, 1/271; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldan, s.v. “Shatān,” 3/226; and Ibn al-Fūṭī, Talkhīṣ, 4, no. 837, where his death is mistakenly dated 599 AH. In the base manuscript his nisba is written “al-Satānī” with a sīn—an obvious scribal error.