Original Ottoman Turkish Text
'İbâret bilmegüñ faydası n'oldı
Hemîn bil söz düzer âdemî oldı
Gerek söz bil gerek bilme karındaş
Asıl göñüldeki niyyetüñ oldı
In English
1. What use has knowing fine phrases been; know only that he who composes words was (still) a human being.
2. Brother, whether you know words or not, what matters is the intention in your heart.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Testament
The twenty-fourth chapter is very short. Osman Gazi first tells his son: "Son Orhan, when I die, lay me in Bursa under that Silver Dome." Then he gives a piece of counsel: if someone tells him words that God has not commanded, he should not accept them; if he does not know, he should ask a person who knows God's knowledge. That is the whole of his last will, and the verse is joined directly to it. The wish will be fulfilled: the twenty-eighth chapter tells that Osman died in Söğüt and was laid in Bursa in the Gümüşlü Kümbet, the Silver Dome.
Word and Intention
The counsel of the will is carried a step further here. Rejecting words God did not command and asking those who know put knowledge in the foreground; the verse says knowledge alone is not enough. "'İbâret" is the outward form of speech, the manner of expression; the one who composes words is after all a human being and may err. The second couplet sets the measure firmly: whether words are known or not, what counts is the intention of the heart. This may be read as the verse counterpart of the hadith "deeds are judged by intentions". Coming right after a ruler's last wishes, these lines are as if the author of the book were also setting a reservation about his own words. All four lines end in "oldı" (n'oldı, oldı, oldı, oldı); rhyme and refrain meet in this one word.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 355 (transliterated text, bâb 24).
