Our God, how perfectly just You are—
Sovereign of every sovereign!
Labbayk; I have answered Your call.
Labbayk! Truly, all praise is Yours,
and the dominion belongs to You alone; You have no partner.
Your servant has entered the rites for You;
never is a servant who implores You disappointed.
You are with him wherever he travels;
but for You, O Lord, he would perish.
Labbayk! Truly, all praise is Yours,
and the dominion belongs to You alone; You have no partner.
When the night has grown pitch-black
and the celestial swimmers glide through the sky
along the pathways You have laid,
every prophet and every angel—
and everyone who has entered consecration for You,
glorifying or praying—proclaims:
“Labbayk! Truly, all praise is Yours,
and the dominion belongs to You alone; You have no partner.”
O sinner, how heedless you are!
You have disobeyed a Lord who is just toward you,
who empowered you and granted you respite;
hasten—seize your hope,
and seal your deeds with good.
Labbayk! Truly, all praise is Yours,
and the dominion belongs to You alone; You have no partner.
(1)

Al-Muʿafā ibn Zakariyyā al-Jarīrī said: Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Walīd narrated to us, “I heard Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Thalab say:

‘I entered upon Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and found before me a man concerned for his own soul, unwilling that people speak to him at length, as though the fires had already been kindled before his very eyes. I continued to deal with him gently and pleaded that I was one of the mawālī of Shaybān until he spoke to me and said, “Which branch of knowledge have you studied?” I replied, “Language and poetry.”

He said, “While in Basra I once saw a group writing down poetry from a certain man. I was told, ‘That is Abū Nuwās,’ so I worked my way in among the people behind him. When I sat before him he dictated to us:

Whenever you find yourself alone for a day, never say,
‘I am alone,’ for over solitude there is an Overseer.
Never suppose that Allah is heedless for a single moment,
nor that what is hidden from people is hidden from Him.
By Allah, we amused ourselves until sin followed upon sin,
one sin trailing another in its wake.
Would that Allah might forgive what is past,
and allow us to repent, so that we may repent.”’
(2)