For more about the Persian mystic and poet Mohammad Shirin Maghribi (1349-1406? CE), see this earlier post.  

We’ve left behind
The madrasah,* the temple and monastery.
And sat down with our Beloved in the street
Of the Master.

We’ve thrown away the prayer mat
And the rosary;
In service of the Christian child
We’ve put on the girdle.**

On wine-house benches we’ve torn up our priestly robes;
In the taverns of drinkers we’ve broken out vows of piety!

We have abandoned counting the rosary beads
And escaped from the snare of virtue, piety and abstinence.

In this quarter we annihilated our existence.
When we became Nothing, we were Everything.
Not from us the meaning of Wisdom and Learning.
O Learned man, we are Lovers who are drunk!

Thank God that we have abandoned worship of the Self;
We are totally free and worship only the wine!
We are drunk and wild and yearning for wine!

Our friend is he who is drunk and ruined.
Maghribi has moved his baggage from this gathering;
He was a barrier in our path – we’re free!

*madrasah=a place of study, often but not exclusively of a religious nature.

**Girdle here refers to the ‘zunnar,’ a distinctive belt that non-Muslims were obliged to wear in Muslim lands. For an orthodox Muslim, these lines would imply the abandonment of the true faith.

Tr. Mahmood Jamal