Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Gine bir yiñi cilve kıldı 'âlem
Ki hüsni zîbâ ola bunda âdem
Tecellî eyledi nûr-ı sa'âdet
Beşâret yazdı safha üzre aklem
Velîler toldı vilâyet-i Karasi
Sanasın kim Cüneyd yâ İbni Edhem
In English
1. Once again the world displayed a new splendour, so that man's beauty might be adorned here.
2. The light of felicity became manifest; the pen wrote good tidings upon the page.
3. The land of Karasi filled with saints; as if Cüneyd or İbn Edhem (were there).
Literary and Historical Commentary
The End of Karasi
The thirty-seventh chapter answers two questions: to whom the timars of the land of Karasi were given and what became of the youth in the fortress. When God granted Orhan the sermon and coinage of Karasi, the Karasi heir came out of the fortress of Bergama by agreement and was sent to Bursa. He lived there two years, then one day a "yumurçak" appeared on him, that is, he caught the plague and died. Orhan summoned his eldest son Süleyman Paşa and gave him the province of Karasi, and himself returned to Bursa.
Cüneyd and İbn Edhem
In the couplets the political change appears as a spiritual renewal. The world shows a new "cilve", splendour, the light of felicity becomes manifest, the pen writes good tidings on the page. The last couplet names the new land as a place full of saints and gives two great Sufis as examples: Cüneyd of Baghdad and İbrahim b. Edhem, who is said to have left the throne of Balkh to become a dervish. Since this second name carries the story of a ruler who left his throne, it sets up a quiet contrast with the principality the Karasi heir had lost. In this couplet the word "vilâyet" means both a province and sainthood; Âşıkpaşazâde often uses this double meaning in his work. 'Âlem, âdem, aklem and Edhem rhyme on "-em".
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 373 (transliterated text, bâb 37).
