A ride in some city cabs is poetry in motion.

Ghulam Ghous is one of four hacks who lead other cabby crooners in the singing of “Saif-ul-Muluk,” an Islamic poem based on a fable that tells the story of a prince besotted with a fairy princess. The verses contain a number of proverbs on living a holy life.

“It teaches me a lot of things about my religion but also how to treat all people,” Ghous told The Post. “To care about other people. Not to cheat other people.”

The cabby quartet take turns singing different parts of the 700-page epic, while about 40 other drivers listen in on a conference line.

“It’s about the meaning of life,” said Ghous, 43, who lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

He has committed about 200 pages to memory so far and plans on learning more.

Tucked inside his dog-eared copy is a tattered scrap of paper scrawled with notes on certain passages that tickle his fancy.

Ghous began singing the poem to other cabbies in 1994 over a CB radio — which has since evolved into the cellphone.



Despite a city crackdown on phone use, Ghous refuses to pipe down.

“When we sing now, we do it when we take customers out to Brooklyn, Queens or The Bronx — there’s no TLC inspectors there,” he said.

The Punjabi poem, whose title translates to “Sword of Kings,” is named for a breathtaking lake in northern Pakistan and was written by 19th-century Sufi poet Mian Muhammad Bakhsh.

It begins: “First, all praise is for Allah/Who is the Lord of all/He who recites his Name/Never will lose in any field!”

It steers hacks — and everyone — on a righteous path.

“What do we gain by back-biting? Save yourself, O Mohammed! For as you sow, so shall you reap,” it reads.