Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḫᵛāb-ı ġafletden uyanup zīnet-i eşcāre baḳ
Ḳudret-i Ḥaḳḳ'a naẓar ḳıl revnaḳ-ı ezhāre baḳ
Gözüñ aç gör nice iḥyā oldı emvāt-ı zemīn
Ḥaşr-ı ecsāda o münkir itdügi inkāre baḳ
Sebz-pūş olup ḳıyāma ṭurdılar her bir şecer
Ḳıldılar secde ḥużūr-ı ḳalb ile kühsāre baḳ
Minber-i şāḫ üzre çıkmış va‘ẓ ider murġ-ı çemen
Selsebīl āyātını tefsīr ider enhāre baḳ
Meşrebüñ āb-ı revān gibi eger ṣāf eyleyüp
‘Āşıḳ-ı ṣādıḳ geçerseñ gel beru dīdāre baḳ
Ḫār fikri bülbüle gülden ḳomaz būy-ı vefā
Yoḳ ḥisābına ṣay aġyārı beru gel yāre baḳ
Yarın añda ḳalmayam dirseñ fiġān u zārda
‘Adliyā bunda işitdügüñ fiġān u zāre baḳ

In English

1. Wake from the sleep of heedlessness and look at the adornment of the trees; behold the power of God, look at the brilliance of the flowers.

2. Open your eyes and see how the dead of the earth have come back to life; look at the denial of that denier who denied the raising of the bodies (on the Day of Resurrection). (The reviving of the soil in spring, after lying as if dead through the winter, is taken as proof of resurrection after death; the denier's claim comes to nothing before this sight. The M1 and M2 manuscripts read "haşr-ı ihyâ" instead of "haşr-ı ecsâd".)

3. Every tree has put on green garments and stood up for "kıyâm"; look at the mountains, they have bowed in prostration with a heart at peace. ("Kıyâm" means both the standing position in ritual prayer and rising from the dead at the Resurrection. The trees standing upright in green are likened to worshippers at prayer, the low mountains to those in prostration.)

4. The bird of the meadow (the nightingale) has climbed the pulpit of the bough and is preaching; look at the rivers interpreting the verses about Selsebil. (Selsebil is a spring of Paradise named in the Qur'an; the flowing rivers are likened to commentators expounding the verses that describe it.)

5. If you purify your nature like running water and pass through this world as a faithful lover, come here and look upon the Face. ("Dîdâr" means face or countenance; in Sufi language it refers to beholding the beauty of God.)

6. The thought of the thorn leaves the nightingale no scent of faithfulness from the rose; count the strangers as nothing, come here and look at the Beloved. (The thorn of the rose stands for the strangers, the ağyar, who draw the lover's attention away from the beloved.)

7. O Adlî, if you say "Let me not be left in lament and wailing there tomorrow (in the hereafter)", look at the lament and wailing you hear here. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the cries of pain heard in this world are reminders of the hereafter and should be taken as a lesson; or the laments of the nightingales singing in spring are the voice of divine love already heard now.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

A tevhid is a poem on the unity and power of God; in divans it stands in the opening section together with the münacat and the na‘t. Adlî's tevhid is a seven-couplet poem in ghazal form. The metre is the "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is the imperative "baḳ", "look"; the rhyme is built on the sound "-âre": eşcâre, ezhâre, inkâre, kühsâre, enhâre, dîdâre, yâre, zâre. Because every couplet ends with a command, the poem has the tone of a sermon calling its hearer to attention.

The poem stands second in the edition and is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts; it is absent from İBB because the opening leaves of that manuscript are missing. Its title in the edition is "Tevhîd". The variants between manuscripts are minor: in T the third couplet reads "kıyâmet" instead of "kıyâma", and the sixth reads "anı gel beru ruhsâre" instead of "ağyârı beru gel yâre". There is no record of to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Adlî builds his tevhid on a spring landscape instead of abstract praise. The proof of God's existence and power is nature waking from its sleep. In the second couplet the reviving of the dead of the earth describes plants that wither in winter and grow green in spring, and links this to the belief in resurrection after death. The idea occurs often in the Qur'an, and treating the spring scene together with the belief in resurrection is a familiar path in divan poetry. By saying "look at his denial", the poet presents the landscape itself as the answer to the denier.

In the third and fourth couplets nature turns into a scene of worship. The trees clothed in green are a congregation standing at prayer, the mountains are in prostration, the nightingale is a preacher who has climbed the pulpit of the bough, and the rivers interpret the verses describing Selsebil, the spring of Paradise. There is a clear congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words kıyâm, secde (prostration), minber (pulpit), va‘z (sermon), âyet (verse) and tefsîr (commentary); the trees, the bird and the rivers worshipping like human beings is personification (teşhis). Because the word "kıyâm" suggests both the standing position in prayer and the rising of the dead at the Resurrection, it is used as a double entendre (tevriye) and carries forward the idea of resurrection from the second couplet.

After the fifth couplet the direction of the poem changes. The poet who called his hearer to behold nature now invites him to inner purification. Running water is the symbol of cleanliness and clarity in divan poetry; the reward promised to the faithful lover whose nature is as pure as water is "dîdâr", the vision of the beauty of God. The rose, thorn and nightingale of the sixth couplet form a classical motif: the nightingale loves the rose, but the thorn torments it. Here the thorn takes the place of the ağyar, the strangers who come between lover and beloved; the lover must count them as nothing and look only at the beloved. Since the poem is read under the heading of tevhid, the beloved here is understood as God.

In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas), the pair "fiğân u zâr" (lament and wailing) is repeated in both lines; in the first it carries the meaning of regret in the hereafter, in the second the meaning of the sounds heard in this world. The words "yarın" (tomorrow) and "bunda" (here) set the hereafter against this world. By addressing his own pen name, the poet turns the advice first upon himself, an attitude often seen in the mahlas couplets of divan poetry.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 40, poem no. 2; introduction pp. 30-32 (description of the manuscripts). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr