“He begat not, neither was He begotten”

Loftier than hue and blood thy people are, And greater worth one Negro of the Faith Than are a hundred redskin infidels.

A single drop of water Qanbar took For his ablutions is more precious far Than all the blood of Caesar.

Take no count Of father, mother, uncle; call thy self An offspring of Islam, as Salman did.

See, my brave comrade, in the honeyed cells That constitute the hive a subtle truth;

One drop from a red tulip is distilled, One from a blue narcissus; none proclaims,

“I am of jasmine, of lily I!”

So our community the beehive is Of Abraham whose honey is our Faith.

If thou hast made of our community Lineage a part essential, thou hast rent The fabric of true Brotherhood;

thy roots Have struck not in our soil, thy way of thought Runs counter to our Muslim rectitude.

Ibn-i-Mas‘ud, that lantern bright of Love, Body and spirit blazing in Love’s flame,

Being distressed upon a brother’s death Dissolved in tears, a mirror liquefied,

Nor any term to his lamentings saw But in his grief; as of her child bereaved A mother weeps

so uncontrollably He sobbed: “Ah, scholar of humility, Alas, my comrade in the schools of prayer!

My tall young cypress, fellow traveller Upon the pathway of the Prophet’s love!

O grief, that he is now denied the courts Of God’s Apostle, while mine eyes are bright With gazing fondly on the Prophet’s face!

The bond of Turk and Arab is not ours, The link that binds us is no fetter’s chain Of ancient lineage;

our hearts are bound To the beloved Prophet of Hijaz, And to each other are we joined through him.

Our common thread is simple loyalty To him alone; the rapture of his wine Alone our eyes entrances;

from what time This glad intoxication with his love. Raced in our blood, the old is set ablaze In new creation.

As the blood that flows Within a people’s veins, so is his love Sole substance of our solidarity.

Love dwells within the spirit, lineage The flesh inhabits; stronger far than race And common ancestry is Love’s firm cord.

True loverhood must overleap the bounds Of lineage, transcend Arabia Of lineage, transcend Arabia And Persia.

Love’s community is like The light of God; whatever being we Possess, from its existence is derived.

“None seeketh when or where God’s light was born; What need of warp and woof, God’s robe to spin?”

Who suffereth his foot to wear the chains Of clime and ancestry, is unaware How He begat not, neither was begot.