A nameless bastard and a mere barber—that is all you managed to overpower;
and what worth has the blood-sucker of the cupping-bowls?

Why did you not rather assail Damyāna before that, or Thimal—
alas, for the age of the lion-hearted!(1)

On those nights they led you off as a butcher drives fattened he-goats,
herding them to the severing of throats;

and at their leisure they escorted the daughters of your kings as captives,
like gazelles from an enclosed preserve led away.

But go and ask Heraclius about us, and every towering, honored king of yours who has passed;

your own crowned ruler will inform you of our deeds,
your Caesar will relate how we carried off your noblewomen,

of the fortified realms of yours we opened,
and the funerals we established in your midst.

So leave aside every base upstart;
do not count him an imam, nor a pillar to be relied upon.

Far, far away are Samarra and Tikrit from your grasp—
mountain-high, drifting dreams at best.

They are wishes craved by the weak, and between you and them
lie flying heads and throats that are cut.

Before Baghdad stand keen-edged swords,
a month’s march even for the most redoubtable champion;

the dwelling of the ascetics, the virtuous, and the God-fearing,
a station occupied by every scholar.

Leave prosperous al-Ramla aside, for barring your way to it
stand, among the Muslims, every stalwart lion.(2)

Short of Damascus is a gathered host,
like storm-clouds of birds massing wing to wing;

and strokes that stamp humiliation upon unbelief,
as the die-cutter strikes the blank white dirhams.

Before the precincts of the Hijaz stand legions
like the countless drops of sweeping, burdened clouds,

with them, from the sons of Adnan, every gallant noble,
and from the stock of Qahtan, the dignified wearers of grand turbans.

[And were you to meet but a small band of Qudaʿah,
you would meet a blaze bursting in brittle stubble.]

(3)

When they fall upon you at dawn,
they will remind you of the tightly joined straits of battles past—

in the days when they would lead the summer campaigns against you,
and you came as a surety that you yourselves would become the spoils.

Soon their companies will come upon you,
erasing even the memory of the capture of the ʿAwāṣim fortresses;

your wealth will be their free gift, and with your blood
the smouldering fury of eager souls will find its cure;

and, assuredly, they will divide up your land,
as they have done for ages with even-handed apportioning.

And were a band to descend upon you from Khurasan—
Shiraz and Rayy, those abiding citadels—

nothing would be seen from you then but what we have always known:
abasement, and the biting of your thumbs in regret.