You were conveyed from noble loins to spotless wombs—
when one generation passed, another rose in its stead.
Until your august, guardian Household, sprung from Khindif,
attained a peak beneath which every warrior fastens his belt.
And when you were born, the very earth shone forth,
the horizons glittered with the radiance of your light.
Within that brilliance, that light, we travel
along the paths that lead to right guidance.
This poem is also reported as the work of Ḥassān ibn Thābit. The ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim ibn ʿAsākir relates it through the following chain: from Abū ʿl-Ḥasan ibn Abī ʿl-Ḥadīd; who was informed by Abū Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr; who was informed by ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Qurashī; who said: Abū Ḥaṣīn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad al-Tamīmī related to us; who said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zāhid al-Khurāsānī related to us; who said: Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Bayān told me; who said: Salām ibn Sulaymān Abū ʿl-ʿAbbās al-Makfūf al-Madaʾinī related to us; who said: Waraqāʾ ibn ʿUmar narrated to us, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from ʿAṭāʾ and Mujāhid, from Ibn ʿAbbās—who said:
I asked the Messenger of God ﷺ, saying: “May my father and mother be your ransom, where were you when Adam was still in Paradise?”
He smiled until his molars showed and replied: “I was in his loins. I was carried aboard the Ark while still in the loins of my father, Noah; I was then cast into the loins of my father, Abraham. Never did my parents meet in fornication. God has continually transferred me from the noble loins of men to the pure wombs of women. My description is well-known, my resting-place secure. Whenever two lineages diverged, He placed me in the better of the two. God took from me the covenant of prophethood and the pledge of Islam; He spread mention of me in the Torah and the Gospel; every prophet clarified my qualities. The earth shines with my light, the clouds are for my face, and He has taught me His Book—”
And it is also reported that
(1) Here al-ṣālib ("ridge") is meant to be al-ṣulb ("backbone"). Likewise, al-ṭabaq ("layer") refers to qarn ("ridge"): ‘as one ridge passes, another appears.’ See Lisan al-‘Arab under ṣalab and ṭabaq. In Lisan al-‘Arab the entry al-ṣālib is vocalized with a fatḥa on the lām (per the pen’s vocalization), whereas in al-Qāmūs and its commentary it appears with a kasra; the editor of at-Tāj also confirms that the kasra is the proper vocalization for al-takmila.
(2) Al-nuṭq (plural of naṭaq) denotes the intermediate summits of high mountains—the successive slopes one above another. The poet likens these nuṭq to the bands that gird people’s waists, using the image to illustrate his own height and central position in his tribe, placing his people beneath him as the mountain ranges lie below. By baytihi (“his house”) he means his honour, and al-muhaymin is an epithet meaning “the one who encompasses,” i.e. “so that your eminent honour embraces your virtue at the highest rank among the lineage of Khunduf.” See Lisan al-‘Arab under nuṭq and hamman. Khunduf was Laylā bint Ḥalwān ibn ʿImrān ibn al-Ḥāf ibn Qaḍāʾah, wife of Ilyās ibn Muḍar; she once set out hastily, prompting Ilyās to ask “Where are you rushing to?”—hence her name, from khundafa (“to rush”), a form of walking. Jamharat Ibn al-Kalbī, pp. 75–76.
(3) In the phrase “anta al-ufuq,” al-ufuq (“the horizon”) means “you extend toward that direction,” while the verb waḍāʾat is here used in the sense of aḍāʾat (“it shone”). See Lisan al-‘Arab under ufuq.
(4) According to Ibn ʿAsākir’s recension the line reads takhtariq (“you cut through”). The bāʾ in s-b-l (“paths”) is given sukūn to preserve the metre, though properly it should carry a ḍamma. This is an example of poetic licence. See Darāʾir al-Shi‘ar, p. 171.
(5) See Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah, vol. 1, pp. 207–208.
(6) In the printed edition it reads “ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad,” a reading confirmed by manuscript Ḥ and by Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir.
(7) In the printed edition the name appears as “Sinān,” which is incorrect. In Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir it is “Bunān,” as in Ikmāl (vol. 1, p. 364). Its editor notes in the margin that some read “Ibn Bayān,” with the hamzat al-wasl bearing a fatḥa followed by a softened tanwīn, as in at-Tawdhīḥ. This corresponds to our source manuscript (Ḥ).