By your life! The day I set the witless Dumār
as a partner to the Lord of every realm,

and turned from the Messenger of God while the Aws
encircled him—true Helpers they were, what Helpers!—

was like a man who leaves the level plain and the safe highland
only to stride along the roughest tracks of hardship.

So I believed in God, whose servant I am,
and opposed those who still courted their own ruin.

I turned my face toward Mecca, intent
on pledging allegiance to the blessed Prophet, noblest of men. (1)

A prophet has come to us after Jesus, eloquent in truth;
his word is decisive—so indeed it is.

Guardian of the Qur’an, the foremost intercessor,
the first commissioned one whom the angels obey.

He mended the bonds of Islam after they had frayed
and strengthened them until the rites stood firm.

I mean you—best of all creation:
you stand between the two noble lines, holding glory in your grasp.

You are the chosen one of Quraysh; when its lineage rises
upon its swift mounts, blessed generations endure. (2)

Whenever the two clans—Kaʿb and Mālik—vie in ancestry,
we find you pure, while other maternal lines are mingled. (3)

Al-Kharāʾiṭī said (4):

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Balawī in Egypt narrated to us; ʿUmārah ibn Zayd narrated to us; Ishāq ibn Bishr and Salamah ibn al-Faḍl narrated to us; from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, who said:

A man of the Anṣār told me—his name was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maḥmūd, of the family of Muḥammad ibn Maslamah—who said:

“It reached me that some men of Khathʿam used to say: ‘Among the things that led us to Islam was that we were a people who worshipped idols. One day, while we were at one of our idols, a group approached it seeking judgment, hoping it would grant them relief in a dispute that had arisen among them. Suddenly a voice called out to them (5):

O people of flesh and bone—
from grey-bearded elder to stripling lad!
Why cling to reckless notions
and entrust judgment to idols?
Are you all slumbering, lost in bewilderment (6),
or can you not see what stands before me?’”