Time and Moral Urgency

 

  بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

 مَضَى أَمْسُكَ الْمَاضِي شَهِيدًا مُعَدَّلًا 

وَأَعْقَبَهُ يَوْمٌ عَلَيْكَ جَدِيدٌ

 

فَيَوْمُكَ إِنْ أَغْنَيْتَهُ عَادَ نَفْعُهُ 

عَلَيْكَ وَمَاضِي الْأَمْسِ لَيْسَ يَعُودُ

 

فَإِنْ كُنْتَ بِالْأَمْسِ اقْتَرَفْتَ إِسَاءَةً

فَثَنِّ بِإِحْسَانٍ وَأَنْتَ حَمِيدٌ

 

فَلَا تُرْجِ فِعْلَ الْخَيْرِ يَوْمًا إِلَى غَدٍ

لَعَلَّ غَدًا يَأْتِي وَأَنْتَ فَقِيدٌ 

Meaning: 

Yesterday has passed, a witness whose testimony stands,

and after it a new day has come to you.

If you make today rich with good, its benefit returns to you;

yesterday will not come back.

So if you did some wrong yesterday,

follow it with goodness, and you will be praiseworthy.

Do not put off a good deed until tomorrow;

tomorrow may come when you yourself are gone.

Language:

Arabic

Transliteration:

Maḍā amsuka al-māḍī shahīdan muʿaddalan

wa-aʿqabahu yawmun ʿalayka jadīd

fa-yawmuka in aghnaytahu ʿāda nafʿuhu

ʿalayka wa-māḍī al-amsi laysa yaʿūd

fa-in kunta bi-l-amsi iqtarafta isāʾatan

fa-thanni bi-iḥsānin wa-anta ḥamīd

fa-lā turji fiʿla al-khayri yawman ilā ghadin

laʿalla ghadan yaʾtī wa-anta faqīd

Origins:

 

The earliest extant record I could verify is in Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s Kalām al-Layālī wa-l-Ayyām. In the passage after a saying of ʿAbd Allāh b. Marwān b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥakam, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā says directly, “أنشدني محمود بن الحسن”, then gives the four lines. A scanned copy of the book preserves the same wording,.

That attribution is then corroborated by al-Bayhaqī in al-Zuhd al-Kabīr, who transmits with an isnād to Ibn Abī al-Dunyā: “أنشدني محمود بن الحسن قوله”, followed by the same poem. So the chain is not just “quoted anonymously”; it comes through a report framed as Ibn Abī al-Dunyā hearing it from Mahmud himself.

The Mahmud in question is best identified as محمود الورّاق، ابن الحسن البغدادي. Biographical notices describe him as a Baghdadi poet known for moral and ascetic verse, and they note specifically that Ibn Abī al-Dunyā narrated from him.

There is also a competing later attribution. Al-Thaʿlabī preserves a variant with “وأصبحت في يوم عليك شهيد” and attributes it to al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, while al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī transmits a close variant and labels it “لمحمود”. Because Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s witness is earlier and direct, the safer literary judgment is that the poem is by Mahmud al-Warraq, while the al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī attribution is a later rival attribution.

Brief Explanation:

The poem turns time into a moral witness. Yesterday is not merely over; it is now part of the record. Today, by contrast, is still open. That is why the poem moves from memory to action: you cannot retrieve yesterday, but you can still use today well.

What gives the poem its depth is that it is not just about “using time wisely.” It is about accountability before God. The phrase shahīdan muʿaddalan has an almost juridical sound: yesterday is like a reliable witness whose testimony will be accepted. So the poem presses two things at once—self-reckoning and immediate repair.

To my ear, the poem is stronger than a simple warning against laziness. It teaches moral urgency: do not waste the present in regret over the past, but do not hide behind regret either. Turn regret into action.

In the classical ascetic and ethical tradition, days and nights are often described as witnesses over human deeds, and this poem is a very concentrated expression of that outlook. The surrounding material in later moral works preserves exactly this idea: each day comes as something new, bears witness to what is done in it, and then departs forever.

A note about variants:

First, there is “in aghnaytahu” versus “in aʿtabtahu.” In one early witness from Ibn Abī al-Dunyā the line reads “fa-yawmuka in aghnaytahu ʿāda nafʿuhu”: if you enrich today, fill it with worthwhile good, its benefit returns to you. In al-Bayhaqī’s transmission it reads “in aʿtabtahu”: if you use today to make amends, to set matters right, its benefit returns to you. The first reading stresses fruitfulness; the second stresses repentance and repair. The nearby prose in Ibn Rajab about having a mustaʿtab, a chance to make amends, fits that second shade especially well.

Second, there is “wa-aʿqabahu yawmun ʿalayka jadīd” versus “wa-aṣbaḥta fī yawmin ʿalayka shahīd.” The first means: yesterday was followed by a new day. The second is more vivid and personal: you have awakened into a day that is itself a witness over you. So one version emphasizes succession; the other intensifies the image of scrutiny and testimony. The latter appears in the rival attribution preserved by al-Thaʿlabī.

Third, the order of the middle couplets shifts in transmission. In the Ibn Abī al-Dunyā witness, the couplet about wrongdoing yesterday comes before the couplet about making today fruitful. In later quotations, including one cited by Ibn Rajab, the order appears as in the version you sent: first the present day, then repair of yesterday. The meaning stays close, but the emphasis shifts a little. Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s order makes today the remedy for yesterday’s fault; the reordered version makes today the main opportunity, then explains one chief use of that opportunity.