while his own soul was absorbed in remembrance within its prayer-niche.
In fasting and in the regular prayers he wearied himself, yet the pledge of his repose lay in those very exertions.
He hastened to renounce his pleasures, trusting in the fair outcome and the blessed return they would bring.
So let the whole world boast of the steward of its dominion—of him who studies its sciences and commits them to the page:
its devoted faster, its night-vigilant worshipper, its all-knowing scholar; its man of action, its open-handed giver, its lavish bestower.

And what is astonishing is that al-Qāḍī (1) al-Fāḍil—despite his brilliance [and an eloquence that admits of neither rival nor peer]—(2) is not known to have composed any long, resounding ode. Rather, he will insert no more than a line or two (3) here and there in his correspondence (4) and elsewhere, and there are in fact very many of them. Among these are his words (6):
[from the ṭawīl]
You were first to bestow kindness, purely out of generosity; among all who converse or recount, none is your equal. (7)
I had thought to outstrip you in that deed, but she wept before I did, (8) and her tears stirred my own.

He also said (9):
[from the ṭawīl]
I have a companion such that I fear no sudden injustice from fate unless he stands behind me.
When the vicissitudes of time bite, I charge upon them beneath the standards he unfurls, and they retreat.

At the very beginning of his career he wrote (10) [from the wāfir]:
I see the whole company of scribes together,
receiving stipends that sustain them through the years;
Yet I have no allowance among them—as though
I had been created from a nobler race of scribes!

And on the bee and the zalqaṭṭa he composed:
[from the kāmil]
Two songsters answered one another in a gathering,
but people banished them both for the harm they caused;
One bestows the very opposite of what the other brings—
this one is praised, while that one is blamed.