The remembrance of a beloved has stirred in me a flood of tears—
for it is remembering that unlocks the springs of weeping.

Indeed, the loss of one we love is a grave ordeal;
but how many a generous soul is tried, and then endures with patience.

I have watched the finest of the Muslims arrive in throngs,
and the generations that follow come on more slowly after them.

May Allah never banish from His mercy the martyrs who fell one after another at Muʾtah—
among them the two-winged Jaʿfar.

With him were Zayd and ʿAbd Allāh when they followed in turn,
all together while the specter of death hovered close.

That morning they set out, leading the believers toward death,
guided by a blessed, radiant commander.

He shone like the light of the full moon, a son of Hāshim—
lofty, and when wronged, daring to resist.

He kept thrusting until he toppled, unpillowed,
in a battlefield where lances splintered.

So he joined the company of martyrs, and his reward
is gardens—green, luxuriant, intertwined.

In Jaʿfar we saw, from Muhammad himself,
faithfulness and firm resolve whenever he gave command.

Within Islam the House of Hāshim still stands
as pillars of honor that shall never be shaken, a source of pride.

They are the mountain of Islam, while those around them
are but rubble at the foot of a towering, dominant peak.

Noble men indeed: among them Jaʿfar and his brother ʿAlī,
and among them Aḥmad, the Chosen.

Hamzah and al-ʿAbbās belong to them as well, and ʿAqīl—
like the fragrant sap drawn from the aloe wood.

Through them hardship is relieved in every dark dilemma
when people find no way out.

They are the allies of Allah; His judgment descended upon them,
and among them was revealed this purified Book.

Kaʿb ibn Mālik—may Allah be pleased with him—said (1):

Sleep has closed all eyes, yet tears stream from yours,
flowing like a downpour from a rain-laden cloud.

On a night whose cares swept over me:
at times I yearn, at times I toss in anguish.

Grief visited me, so I passed the night
as though Banāt Naʿsh and Al-Simāk stood guard over me.

It was as if, within my breast and vitals,
a piercing meteor had lodged, from the sorrow that returned.

I mourn the men who fell, one after another, that day at Muʾtah—
firmly braced, never turning back.

May Allah’s prayers be upon those valiant youths,
and may the hanging rain-cloud water their bones.

They offered their lives to Allah at Muʾtah, steadfast—
fearing ruin and dreading to show cowardice.

They advanced before the Muslims as though they were armored elephants (2),
clad in plates of forged steel—

led by Jaʿfar and his standard at the very front;
what an excellent vanguard he was.