(1) Even if I exerted every ounce of strength to requite
a single favor with which You have distinguished me,
(2) my striving would never reach
(3) even the farthest edge of its due.
(4) Are You not the One whose shelter I hope for
when (5) my loved ones leave me
(6) alone in my grave?
So pour upon me a kindness from You that will guide my inmost soul
and my heart, (7) and draw me near to You (8) without distance.
He passed away (9) on Saturday, the third of Ramadan; the funeral prayer was held for him after the ʿAsr prayer at the Muzaffari Mosque (10), and he was buried at the foot of the mountain (11).
Abu al-Qasim ʿAli ibn Balaban ibn ʿAbd Allah (12), known as al-Nasir, an accomplished, beneficial hadith scholar, died (13) on Thursday, the first of Ramadan.
The man of letters Mujir al-Din (14) Muhammad ibn Yaʿqub ibn ʿAli, famed as Ibn Tamim al-Hamawi—the poet and compiler of a collected Diwan of verse—has said (15):
(16) I beheld the meadow’s rose strike its own cheek,
(17) voicing words of wrath against the violet.
(1) Edition A reads “ajr,” edition B “ahad,” while the appendix records “aḥalla.”
(2) In editions A, B and the appendix the text reads “lam yaḥwi aṭrāfahā.”
(3) Edition A: “ḥaddī,” edition B: “jaddī.”
(4) Edition Ṭ reads “ḥanānik” (“your mercy”); this reading does not occur in editions A, B or the appendix.
(5) In the appendix: “ḥaythamā takhallifnī” (“wherever you lag behind me”).
(6) In the appendix, before this verse the following couplet is inserted: “Alastu allaḏī adʿūka fī kulli kurba … fa-farrajtuhā lawlāka ṭārat bihā kabdī.”
(7) Edition B reads “tahdī … wa tudnīnī ilayk.”
(8) Editions A and B read “min al-baʿd.”
(9) Edition B reads “wa kāna wafātah.”
(10) This Jaʿīḥ still stands today on the slopes of Qasiun, at Talʿat al-Ḥanābila off Abu Jarash Street leading to the Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn quarter. In our day it is known as the Ḥanābila Mosque (Al-Dāris, vol. 2, p. 435).
(11) Edition B reads “bisafaḥ Qasiun.”
(12) Biography of Ibn Balban in the appendix of Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 4, p. 269); Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 15, p. 523); al-Iʿlām bi-Wafayāt al-Aʿlām (p. 285); al-ʿIbar (vol. 5, p. 348); al-Ishrāra (p. 374); al-Nujūm al-Zāhira (vol. 7, p. 368); Bughya al-Wuʿāt (vol. 2, p. 152); Ḥusn al-Muḥādhara (vol. 1, p. 468); and Shadharāt al-Dhahab (vol. 7, p. 676).
(13) Edition B reads “tawaffā fī yawm.”
(14) Biography of Ibn Tamīm al-Ḥamawī in the appendix of Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 4, pp. 277–280); Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 15, p. 531); al-ʿIbar (vol. 5, p. 351); al-Wāfi (vol. 5, p. 228); Fawāt al-Wafayāt (vol. 4, p. 54); al-Dalīl al-Shāfī (vol. 2, p. 712); and Shadharāt al-Dhahab (vol. 7, pp. 679–680).
(15) These two verses appear in the appendix of Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 4, p. 280); al-Nujūm al-Zāhira (vol. 7, p. 368); and Shadharāt al-Dhahab (vol. 7, p. 680).
(16) Mirʾāt al-Zamān’s appendix includes this, but the metre is irregular.
(17) Edition B reads “wa yaqūl inna ʿalā al-banafsaj muḥnaqq,” which contains a linguistic error. In the appendix of Mirʾāt al-Zamān, al-Nujūm al-Zāhira and Shadharāt al-Dhahab it appears as “wa yaqūl wa huwa ʿalā al-banafsaj muḥnaqq.”