Nor the dispersal of countless hosts—
a sundering that severs the rope of fellowship—

Rather, it is the loss of him whose death
has stripped us of the lamp of guidance and the radiance of learning.

Death, in taking him, did not merely fell a man;
it cast down a banner of the faith raised high.

When ruin returned his soul to the dust,
it hurled from the sky a star whose light poured upon all who opposed the truth.

While he lived, the age gave forth only the clearest draughts;
now it has turned turbid and bitter.

Never again will the bright days he adorned—
days that made knowledge a light and piety its sanctuary—return.

Time will never unveil his equal
so long as pilgrims rein in their mounts at the sacred way-posts.

Whenever he drew the sword of reason to untie a knot,
he restored the long-effaced path, plain and wide.

He allowed no idle prattle or obscenity to reach his ear,
nor did he do anything that would cloak him in reproach.

His admonitions polished the rust of hearts
as dawn’s first glow dispels the night’s darkness.

No eulogist of his can be sure he has not fallen short,
nor need he fear, though prolix, the charge of exaggeration.

The tracts of Allah’s earth would each have wished to be his grave,
for his blessed body would have graced them with fragrance.

Your life was a light for the world and its people;
now that light is veiled from them.

Had the earth known whom it concealed,
its every quarter would have bowed to you in reverence and welcome.

If they lament you, it is because their thrones lie broken,
and knowledge itself now stands mourned and eulogised.

Such are the marvels that time has brought—and the passing days
will yet go on revealing to us their wonders.