Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ūlün fe‘ūlün fe‘ūlün fe‘ūl

Ḫudāyā Ḫudālıḳ saña yaraşur
Nitekim gedālıḳ baña yaraşur
Çü sensin penāhı cihān ḫalḳınuñ
Ḳamudan saña ilticā yaraşur
Şeh oldur ki ḳulluġuñ itdi senüñ
Ḳuluñ olmayan şeh gedā yaraşur
Şu baş kim saña secde eylemeye
Ser-i şāh ise zīr-i pā yaraşur
Şu dil kim marīż-i ġamuñdur senüñ
Aña ẕikrüñ ile şifā yaraşur
Şu kim dürr-i ġufrānuñ olmaḳ diler
Ġamuñ baḥrına āşinā yaraşur
Egerçi ki ‘isyānumuz çoḳ durur
Sözümüz yine rabbenā yaraşur
Ne ümmīd ü ne bīmdür işümüz
Hemān bize ḫavf u recā yaraşur
Eger ‘adl ile sorasın ‘Adli'yi
‘Uḳūbetdür aña sezā yaraşur
Ben itdüm anı kim baña yaraşur
Sen eyle anı kim saña yaraşur
Şu günde ki hiç çāresi ḳalmaya
Aña çāre-res Muṣṭafā yaraşur

In English

1. O God, Godhood befits You, just as poverty and begging at Your door befit me.

2. Since You are the refuge of the world's people, it befits everyone to seek shelter in You.

3. The true shah is the shah who has served You; a shah who is not Your servant deserves to be a beggar.

4. A head that does not bow to You in prostration, even if it is the head of a king, deserves to lie beneath the feet.

5. For the heart that has fallen sick with longing for You, it is fitting to find its cure in remembering You.

6. Whoever wishes to win the pearl of Your forgiveness must become at home in the sea of longing for You. (The pearl is brought up from the depths of the sea; one who seeks forgiveness must first plunge into the pain of divine love. The word "âşinâ" means "acquainted, familiar", and in older usage also "one who can swim".)

7. Though our rebellion, that is, our sin, is great, it still befits our tongue to say "Rabbenâ" (Our Lord). (Many prayers in the Qur'an begin with the word "Rabbenâ".)

8. Our state is neither hope alone nor fear alone; what befits us is to carry fear and hope together.

9. If You were to question Adlî with justice, punishment is what he deserves; punishment befits him.

10. I have done what befits me; now You do what befits You. (As a servant I have sinned; as God, forgive.)

11. On that day when no remedy is left (the Day of Judgement), it befits Mustafa, that is, the Prophet Muhammad, to be the one who brings a remedy to the helpless. (A reference to the Prophet's intercession.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

A münacat is a poem of supplication and prayer addressed to God; in divans it usually stands at the very beginning, together with the tevhid and the na‘t. Adlî's münacat is an eleven-couplet poem in ghazal form and the longest poem in his divan. The metre is the "fe‘ûlün fe‘ûlün fe‘ûlün fe‘ûl" pattern of the mütekârib family of aruz (quantitative metre), a measure with short lines, grave and well suited to the language of prayer. Every couplet ends with the redif (refrain word) "yaraşur" ("befits"), and the rhyme is the sound "-â": Hudâ, gedâ, ilticâ, pâ, şifâ, âşinâ, rabbenâ, recâ, sezâ, Mustafâ. In the opening couplet and in the tenth couplet the rhyme is formed by the words "saña / baña" ("to You / to me"), so the tenth couplet echoes the opening of the poem.

The poem stands first in Yavuz Bayram's critical edition, which is based on five manuscripts. According to Bayram's description of the manuscripts, the British Library copy (OR), the Egyptian copy (T) and the two copies in the Millet Library (M1, M2) all open with this couplet. It is absent from the copy in the Atatürk Library (İBB) because about five leaves are missing from the beginning of that manuscript. In T the 6th and 10th couplets are missing; the last couplet stands tenth in OR and ninth in T. In the Adlî entry of TEİS, Bayram gives this münacat as the first sample of the poet's work. There is no record of to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole design of the poem rests on the idea of "befitting", of one thing being proper to someone. In the first couplet Godhood and servitude are set against each other: Godhood befits God, beggary befits the poet. The opposition between Hudâ and gedâ, between saña and baña, is an example of antithesis (tezat), and the sound repetition between Hudâyâ and Hudâlık, which come from the same root, is an example of derivation (iştikak). In the third and fourth couplets the contrast is carried over to earthly kingship: a shah who does not serve God deserves to be a beggar, and a head that does not prostrate itself before Him deserves to be the dust beneath the feet. This reversal between shah and servant, head and foot, gains particular weight when one remembers that the poem was written by a sultan; the poet ties the worth of his own rank to being a servant of God.

The fifth and sixth couplets use two familiar images of Sufi language: the cure for a heart sick with the love of God is to remember Him (zikr), and one who seeks the pearl of forgiveness must dive into the sea of longing. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between pearl, sea and âşinâ (swimmer). The seventh and eighth couplets bring into the poem the Islamic ethical concept of "havf u recâ", fear and hope: the believer neither despairs of God's mercy nor feels secure from His punishment.

The ninth couplet is the most striking point of the poem. In the line "Eger ‘adl ile sorasın ‘Adli'yi" the word "adl" (justice) stands next to the poet's pen name (mahlas) "Adlî". The poet, whose pen name means "just", says that if he were judged by God's justice nothing but punishment would fall to him. Bayram notes that Bayezid, as his pen name also indicates, was a sultan who attached great importance to justice; in the münacat the same word is placed in a sentence in which the servant confesses his own fault. The tenth couplet answers this confession: the servant has done what befits him, that is, he has sinned; from God he expects what befits God, that is, forgiveness. The last couplet, as is common in divan münacats, links the poem to the na‘t by invoking the Prophet's intercession.

The sources quoted in Bayram's introduction also stress Bayezid's interest in Sufism and his devotion to worship. According to the Şehnâme writer Talikizâde, he behaved like a Sufi; according to Uzunçarşılı, he was always occupied with worship, went to the mosque and gave alms. This information is not enough to date the poem, but it shows that the language of servitude and humility in the münacat agrees with what is related about the poet's character.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 39, poem no. 1; introduction p. 23 (Bayezid's interest in Sufism, justice and the pen name), pp. 30-32 (description of the manuscripts). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Yavuz Bayram, "Adlî", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (TEİS), 2013 (updated 2022), section "Eserlerinden Örnekler" (samples of his work).

Online sources