Congratulations on the Conquest of Iraq and Praise of Sultan Sanjar

These signs that appeared through the grace of God, and this good news that came with the king's victory. From the scale of that power the faith will gain strength, and from the fame of it the state will endure. Though the sultan has already won many victories, from which people's esteem for him has only grown, The record of this conquest, which will remain in the world, is a keepsake sweeter than a hundred thousand tales of the Shahnameh. When a band in Iraq rose up in falsehood, it became a duty for the just king to crush them. And to defeat them, his victorious banner chose to move out of Khorasan in the dead of winter. They were an army like demons, swine, ghouls, and bears: dark of mind, brazen of face, life-plundering, deceit-dealing. Wholly heedless of the decree of God the helper, each one deluded by the borrowed fortune of a fleeting world. In their ferocity they rivaled the raging lion, and in their error they marched in step with the white demon. For a whole year they roamed the world, until a hundred thousand men gathered in one place. Stirring up chaos was their constant trade; smearing on false colors was their perpetual disguise. Whoever they caught, whether low or noble, they beheaded with the sword and strung up on the gallows. At times, out of cruelty, they bound strangers; at times, out of cowardice, they slaughtered captives without mercy. At times they publicly branded a Muslim an infidel; at times they openly called a true believer a heretic. Though from their tyranny and plunder, east and west, there was turmoil in the realms and terror on the roads, The king of the world, wishing to avoid bloodshed, advised them in every manner, many times over. When advice was rejected and God so decreed that their evil beliefs would in the end destroy them, The victorious army fell upon them suddenly, like a demon-burning meteor and a fierce raining cloud. When the two armies clashed and mingled, they gripped the fight like an enraged lion at the hunt. The air went dark with clouds of dust like smoke, and the earth ran red with drops of blood like sparks. The sultan's troops had honor joined to safety; the rebels had their resolve fixed only on flight. From the uproar the sun's disc looked like a sick face, and from the tremors the mass of mountains was like a paralyzed body. On the ground grew a yellow crop from the faces of the ill-wishers; in the air rose a crimson mist from the blood of the misguided. The galloping horses were shaped like wind, the whirling dust like clouds; the flashing swords like lightning, the wailing war-drums like thunder. When each lasso coiled and each steed strained, it was a restless dragon and a wheeling sky. The earth's back turned ruby-red, the face of the sky went indigo: one from the diamond of blades, the other from the ink-black dust. Like the hearts of lovers and the souls of the smitten, from men and maces the bodies' center grew tight and the way of souls went dark. A place adorned like the zodiac with sword and armor; a stand as terrible as Judgment Day with its clamor. Bulls writhing in the ground beneath the hooves of the day's lion-horses; the lion in the heavens lifeless from fear of the ox-headed mace. The warrior's back in enamel-blue mail was like the face of the sky; the blade's edge, dripping blood, was like a lizard's back. At times the plain, in its turmoil, wheeled swift as the heavens; at times the heavens, in their turmoil, stood grave as the plain. And from the abundant blood of traitors and schemers that flowed into the mountain slopes and the shores of the seas, Forever they will be born coral-hued and ruby-red: from the one an orphan pearl, from the other pure gold. Standing before the sultan's ranks, beneath his thigh, a steed sky-bodied, plain-leveling, river-crossing. A moon-swift, fish-formed mount that at every moment fitted the back of the fish with fresh shoes new as the crescent moon. It became a cave if its own bulk sank in like a mountain; a mountain rose if its hoof leaped down like a cave. Turning like the sky, its whirl blackening the sky's face; swimming like the fish in water, its stride wounding the fish's body. A mount like Duldul brought thus beneath the saddle, and a sword drawn from its sheath like Zulfiqar, Until the wound of his sword surrendered the souls of the enemies into the hand of the keeper of the house of ruin. Though that army, in treachery and multitude, was faithless as snakes and countless as ants, In flight, if only each of them could, they would sprout wings like an ant and shed their skin like a snake. Though the enemies had gathered every kind of might: beasts of burden, harness, weapons, and cavalry, When fate closed in on them from all four sides, in their hour of need none of those four availed them. And though the sultan had every needed tool at the ready, with a boundless army and a limitless battle line, He put down their evil without any weapon at all: his victory with his servants, his triumph with God. If they were permitted, to offer congratulations, now that the patient God had made his victory possible, The morning sun would come to him from its dawning place, and the trustworthy spirit Gabriel would come to him from the abode of peace. O you whose battlefield's air is like the ground of hell for the foe, and whose banquet-ground's earth is like the air of early spring. Granting the enemy quarter is your way in the world; for this God keeps you under his own protection. You refrained from harming defeated foes, though your harm was the very aim they sought in war. Though now and then a gnat may vex an elephant's heart, in battle the elephant scorns to take revenge on a gnat. O you at whose foot's dust the kings of the world find their strength, and by whose generous hand the sons of Adam find their ease. By the splendor of your judgment and the triumph of your banner, faith and world hold blessing on the right and prosperity on the left. By your justice the falcon sleeps with the partridge in one nest; by your safety the lion walks with the deer in one meadow. So many lands you have seized, so many battle lines you have broken, so many foes you have bound, so many fortresses you have opened. This by the grace of the Glorious God, that by the beauty of your faith; this by the fortune of heaven, that by the striving of time. Give thanks to the God of the world, for not one blessing remains that in eternity he did not lavish upon you as your portion. And never in this world has any wish crossed your blessed mind that was not granted to you without a wait. No wonder such is the state of one who has the ways of the praiseworthy for his mate and the fortune of the blessed for his companion. As long as, in the mixing of nature and substance and creation, the wind is fierce, the earth is yielding, the water is pure, and the fire is sharp, May your enemies, like fire, water, wind, and earth, have yellow faces, low standing, weak resolve, and the stamp of a thorn.