O Muhammad, my hand is inept to draw your life

Your graces, your jihad for His Word and your love!

Each dewdrop, each beauty in affair you champion

You gave to humanity, you returned to Allah

As wonderful and triumphant as a pen breathing in an ocean of ink

Your path straight in its depth, your belief unfaltering

By fountains and mirages of this fleeting Pasture

Making me believe of your trust in the Beloved

And how the children would sing for you

Their eyes bright and their smiles wide

How you received them in your arms, your cause

To clothe them, to feed them, to teach them

That they grow to be like you and to act like you

Thoughts of love, kindnesses and worship of Allah

Alone, and in this humanity your footprints lie

And how sadness would cling to your heart

When the whisperer seduced man to err

Your life is a mirror of divine mercy

And Allah be thanked; lo, Allah be thanked!

You bled in Tai'f for the sake of the Recitation

That cleaved to your tongue, your heart and your mark of the Seal

Pressed to the breast of the universe, spate of burning stars!

O Muhammad, my tears are few to write of your conquests

Ink is plenty though no education moves me

Solitary reflections of your victories, losses and spiritual ascensions

Birthed in the Year of the Elephant, living in the Year of Sadness

You split the stones and clay for therein the infant girl lay

Her soul wailing: "For what crime was I slain?" *

The Qur'an has come down from the Lord and Muhammad is His Messenger

And you displaced their gods and altars into the Waste

Only before Allah we must prostrate, no more shirk and hate!

The poets disputed the verses that you spoke

But none could imagine the flow; yield to Gabriel!

They didn't realise that you bore heaven's yoke

You were unlettered, and yet a sign unto jinn and mankind

Tracing the Word to Abraham and Moses and Jesus son of Mary

Prophets also of the Jews and Christians, People of the Book

Leaning on my spirit, I saw your inheritance in the storm

Ever magnificent, peaceable, gentle and human

To pardon the knives that cut your feet, but you leave the trail behind

For humanity to follow, in Allah's service we must wallow

Slowly but surely all creatures shall perish and die

But for the good-hearted and pious, Paradise is nigh!

Entrust us with your example to prepare for our tomorrow