It left a scorch-mark upon the full moon with its burning blast;
The night of perfect fullness, once luminous, turned jet-black.

Its tongues speak (1) to the seven shining planets,
Telling them what the water beneath the soil is made to endure.

Its blaze (2) has encircled the heavenly mansions
Until their descent seemed almost to reach the earth itself.

Oh, what a sign—one of the miracles of the Messenger of Allah—
A lesson grasped by people of discernment.

By Your hidden Greatest Name: though our sins have grown immense
And the heart is burdened with every ill,

Then pardon, grant, be gracious, erase (3), forgive and bestow,
And overlook—for, out of excessive ignorance (4), each of us is ever prone to fault.

When the people of Jonah believed, the punishment was lifted from them,
And blessing spread over the whole community.

We are the nation of this Chosen Prophet, and through him
We look in hope to Your mercy (5).

He is the Messenger without whom no straight path
Would ever have been trodden in the way of Allah.

So have mercy and send blessings upon the Elect
As long as a dove declaims from the lofty pulpit of leaves (6).

I say: The report concerning this fire is recorded in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, transmitted through al-Zuhrī from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The Hour will not be established until a fire emerges from the land of Ḥijāz that will illuminate the necks of the camels in Busra.” This is the wording of al-Bukhārī (7).

This occurred in the present year—namely, 654 AH—as we have noted. The Chief Judge Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Abī al-Qāsim al-Tamīmī, the Ḥanafī judge in Damascus, informed me during a discussion one day. Mention was made of this ḥadīth and the events of this fire in the same year, and he said: “I heard a Bedouin tell my father in Busra during those nights that they saw the necks of the camels by the light of that fire which had appeared in the land of Ḥijāz.”

I add: He (8) was born in 642 AH. His father had been a lecturer in the Ḥanafī school at the city of Busra (9), as had his grandfather; he himself had also taught there (10) before moving to Damascus, where he lectured at the Ṣādiriyya.