I pour out to you the pain I have suffered from yearning—will you grant me any relief?
For with your elegance and beauty you have, among humankind, taken the place that eyes and very souls once held. (1)

Al-Muʿtaḍid’s caliphate lasted nine years, nine months, and a few additional days, and he was buried in Dār al-Rukhām (the House of Marble).

ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Muʿtazz mourned him, saying:
O dweller of the grave, in its dusty, sunless gloom—
In al-Ẓāhiriyya, cut off from every house, alone! (2)

Where are the armies you used to lead in stately array?
Where are the treasures whose numbers you kept so exact? (3)

Where is the throne you once filled with such dread
That every eye which saw it shook with fear?

Where are the enemies whose stubborn pride you broke?
Where are the lions you turned into distant, fleeing prey? (4)

Where are the chargers whose hooves you crimsoned with blood—
Steeds that bore the lion-hearted hero that you were?

Where are the spears you once fed with men’s life-blood?
Since your death they have touched neither heart nor liver.

Where are the gardens whose rivulets ran clear,
Where the melodious bird would answer their call?

Where are the maidens, gazelle-like in their comings and goings,
Trailing new brocaded robes behind them? (5)

Where are the revelries? And where is the wine
That looked like ruby sheathed in a mail of silver?

Where is the springing upon foes in search of
Restoring the Abbasid realm whenever it was rent?

You never ceased to cow each roaring lion among them,
And to strike down the haughty tyrant with unflinching hand. (6)