“And there is not any equal unto Him”

What is the Muslim, that hath closed his eyes Against the world? This heart attached to God, What is its nature?

On a mountain-top A tulip blowing, that hath never seen The trailing border of the gatherer’s skirt;

The flame is kindled in his ardent breast From the first breaths of dawn;

heaven suffers not To loose him from her bosom, deeming him A star suspended;

the uprising sun Touches his lips with dawn’s first ray, the dew Bathes from his waking eyes the dust of sleep.

Firm must the bond be tied with There is none If thou wouldst an unequalled people be.

He who is Essence One, unpartnered is; His servant too no partner can endure;

And whoso in the Highest of the High Believeth, cannot suffer any peer In his high jealousy.

Wrapt round his breast The robe of Do not grieve, borne on his brow The crown Ye are the highest

he transports On his broad back the burden of both worlds, Protects both land and sea in his embrace;

His ear attentive to the thunder’s roar, His shoulders bared to take the lightning’s scourge,

Against the false he is a sword, a shield Before the truth; evil and good are proved Upon the touchstone of his ordinance And prohibition.

Knotted in his coals A hundred conflagrations lurk; life’s self Derives perfection from his essence pure.

Through the broad spaces of this clamorous world No music sounds but his triumphant song, His loud Allahu Akbar.

Great is he On justice, clemency, benevolence; Noble his temper, even in chastisement.

At festival his lyre delights the mind; Steel melts before his ardour in the fight.

Where roses blossom, with the nightingale’s His sweet song mingles; in the wilderness No falcon is more swift upon the prey.

His heart untranquil scorns to take repose Beneath the heavens; in the spreading skies He makes his dwellings,

He rises far beyond yon ancient hoop That spans our firmament, to whet his beak Against the gleaning stars.

Thou, with thy frail Unspread pinion, tentative to fly, Art like some chrysalis, that in the dust

Still slunmbers on; rejecting the Quran, How meanly thou hast sunk, base caviller Protesting of the turn of Fortune’s wheel!

Yet, lying abject as the scattered dew, Thou hast within thy grip a living Book;

How ling shall earth content thee for thy home? Life up thy baggage; hurl it to the skies!