Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün

Etmez tarîk-i Hakk'da olan halka ser-fürû
Eğmez minâre kâmetini bâd eserse de

In English

1. One who is on God's path does not bow his head to the people; the minaret does not bend its stature though the wind may blow.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

All that survives of Ârifî Ahmed Pasha's poetry is this single independent couplet (beyit), built around the image of a minaret that will not bend in the wind. It is quoted in Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir's Osmanlı Müellifleri, at the point where the pasha's small divan (divançe), whose fate is unknown, is mentioned, and Abdullah Zararsız republished it from this source in his article of 2025. The source does not say whether it was taken from a ghazal (gazel) or a short occasional poem (kıt'a). Nor do the sources give the metre; the lines fit the pattern mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün, provided that in the second line the syllable "-ni" of "kâmetini" is read long. This identification is ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built in an arrangement close to the figure that divan poetry calls "irsâl-i mesel" (the use of a proverb-like example): the first line states a judgement, and the second proves it with a short, visible example in the manner of a proverb. The man on God's path does not "ser-fürû" to the people, that is, he does not bow his head, just as the minaret does not bend its "kâmet", its stature, even when the wind blows. The comparison is not stated outright; the reader himself makes the connection between the upright minaret and the person firmly bound to his faith. This kind of implicit comparison is called teşbîh-i zımnî.

The word "kâmet" is the subtlest point of the couplet. It means stature, height; but read beside the minaret it also calls to mind the "kāmet", the call recited immediately before the prayer (ikamet). The minaret is the place from which the call to prayer (ezan) is given; the ezan and the kāmet are two calls that complete each other. Thus the phrase "the minaret does not bend its kâmet" hints both at the upright height of the minaret and at the unbending nature of the call it carries. The source does not point out this second sense; the reading is not certain. Between "tarîk-i Hak" (the path of God) and "halk" (the people) there is also a closeness of sound and an opposition of meaning: one is the way of God, the other the way of men. The wind (bâd) stands for pressure from outside, the inclination to please people or to fear them.

Historical Context

When the couplet was written is not known. Even so, a likeness is apparent between the unbending stance of the couplet and the epithets Hüsameddin uses for the pasha, "hadîd ve müteazzım", sharp-tempered and haughty. But there is no record showing that the couplet has any direct connection with the pasha's dismissal, banishment or killing at Teke. That in Müstakîmzâde's work (the Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn) the date of his death is given in the chronogram "Şehâdetü'l-Ârif Ahmed" (the martyrdom of Ârif Ahmed) suggests that among his contemporaries there were also those who regarded him as unjustly killed. The pasha's life and his connection with Amasya are told in the article Ârifî Ahmed Pasha.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Abdullah Zararsız, "18. Yüzyılda Vezaretten İhanete Bir Osmanlı Devlet Adamı: Arifî Ahmed Paşa'nın Hayatı ve Muhallefatı", Belleten, 89(316), 2025, p. 1009. https://belleten.gov.tr/tam-metin/3807/tur

Books

  • Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir, Osmanlı Müellifleri, vol. II, ed. M. A. Yekta Saraç, Ankara: TÜBA, 2016, p. 741 (as quoted by Zararsız).

Online sources