The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, by Ibn al-Arabi, tr. Reynold A. Nicholson, [1911], at sacred-texts.com
XLIII
1. Let me never forget my abode at Wána and my saying to camel-riders as they departed and arrived,
2. 'Stay beside us a while that we may be comforted thereby, for I swear by those whom I love that I am consoled (by thinking of you).'
3. If they set out they will journey with the most auspicious omen, and if they halt they will alight at the most bountiful halting-place.
4. ’Twas in the glen of the valley of Qanát I met them, and my last sight of them was between an-Naqá and al-Mushalshal.
5. They watch every place where the camels find pasturage, but they pay no heed to the heart of a lover led astray.
6. O camel-driver, have pity on a youth whom you see breaking colocynth when he bids farewell,
7. Laying his palms crosswise on his bosom to still a heart that throbbed at the noise of the (moving) howdah.
8. They say, 'Patience!' but grief is not patient. What can I do, since patience is far from me?
9. Even if I had patience and were ruled by it, my soul would not be patient. How, therefore, when I have it not?
COMMENTARY
1. 'Wána,' i.e.. the station of confession and shortcoming and failure to pay due reverence to the majesty of the Divine presence.
'Camel-riders,' i.e. the saints and favourites of God (###).
5. 'Every place where the camels find pasturage,' i.e. the objects to which our aspirations tend.
6. 'O camel-driver': he addresses the Divine voice which calls the aspirations towards it.
7. 'Breaking colocynth,' i.e. having his face distorted with anguish (for when colocynth is broken its pungent smell
causes the eyes to water). Imru’u ’l-Qays says (cf. Ahlwardt, The Díwáns, 204, No. 26): ###