In Praise of Jamal al-Din Shah Sheikh Abu Ishaq Inju

Before they set this task upon the glazed blue vault of heaven, and shaped this arched, honeycombed dome of nine glassy layers, before they drew the First Intellect out from the word 'Be!', and brought the forms of all beings into view from nothingness, the lower world was flooded with intellect and spirit, and the shapes of the heavenly bodies were given their raw matter. They dressed the stars in gold-woven satin, and made the mountains a robe of granite and hard stone. They arranged and adorned the realm of the spirits, and toward it the angelic beings turned to gaze. They spread out this luminous green plain in the midst, and made this round arch a vault of seven green porches. They brought good and evil into the world of coming to be and passing away, spoke the name of Adam and made mention of Eve. In the midst of the dome of this turning monastery of a world, they hung the blazing orb of the sun like a Christian's lamp. Before they laced the heavens together with stars, and set in them sun and moon, Mercury and Gemini, they engraved the name of Sheikh Abu Ishaq son of Mahmud Shah as a coin upon the silver face of the sky. Whatever belongs to holding the world and to kingship they have prepared for the presence of the Sultan. The angels of the throne have read upon his banner 'Victory is from God', and the holy ones have taken 'We have granted you a conquest' as its meaning. Conquest and victory have become his constant companions; fortune and high rank have taken shelter at his court. The servants of divine decree and the tracers of destiny have rejected whatever his judgment has set aside. The four elements, five senses, six directions, and seven heavens serve at his court, by nature and by their own will. Surely they have never heard the sea-hearted king's generosity described, those who out of ignorance called the mine or the ocean generous. From that piebald steed of the days, our restless nature the king has branded and marked among his own tamed horses. High and low alike have offered prayers for him at dawn, and those dawn prayers have left their marks. O world-conquering sun of the seven realms, by whose greatness your servants are given the titles of Jamshid and Darius, the heavens have taken a ray from the light of your banner, and have made his name the sun and the world-adorning moon. The stars of the sky, for the sake of honor, at every moment have made the dust of your feet a healing salve for their seeing eyes. From the tip of your pen, in reviving justice, they receive those accounts once attributed to the life-giving breath of the Messiah. May you reign forever on the throne of fortune, world-holder and crown-bestower, for this is the wish the angels of the throne have asked of God Most High.