Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Mu‘īn-i dīn-i Ḥaḳ Sulṭān Süleymān
Ki dergāhına olmışdur felek saṭḥ
Cihādını işidüp Rūḥ-ı ḳudsī
Zebān-ı ḥāl birle eyledi medḥ
Anuñçün dindi fetḥine bu tārīḫ
Bilād-ı Üngürüsi eyledi fetḥ

In English

1. Sultan Süleyman, helper of the religion of God, at whose court the heavens have become a level threshold. (The firmament, the whole dome of the sky, is shown as low as the ground before the sultan's gate.)

2. Hearing of his holy war, the Holy Spirit (Gabriel) praised him with the tongue of circumstance. ("The tongue of circumstance" is what is expressed by the situation itself without being put into words.)

3. For this, this chronogram was spoken for his conquest: "He conquered the lands of Üngürüs (Hungary)."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a chronogram (tarih) of three couplets in the form of a kıt‘a (fragment): the second lines of the couplets rhyme: saṭḥ, medḥ, fetḥ. The metre is the pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün" of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre); the anthologies give no metre. In a chronogram the year of an event is hidden in a line or phrase by ebced reckoning, that is, by the sum of the numerical values assigned to each letter of the Arabic alphabet; in this poem the date is in the last line and is announced by the words "bu tārīḫ", this chronogram, just before it. The poem does not appear among the Turkish poems of Basîrî's divan manuscript; Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi mention it among Basîrî's "exquisite" and "peerless" chronograms. Ahmet Kartal also quotes it in his article.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem opens with brief praise. In the first couplet Süleyman the Magnificent is called "Mu‘īn-i dīn-i Ḥaḳ", helper of the religion of God, and his greatness is expressed by hyperbole: the firmament, the whole dome of the sky, has become a level space, a threshold, before his court. Showing the heavens laid flat at the sultan's gate is a common form of exaltation in panegyric. In the second couplet the praise rises to heaven: the Holy Spirit, Gabriel, hearing of the sultan's holy war, praised him with "zebān-ı ḥāl", the tongue of circumstance. In this couplet the words "cihad", "Rūḥ-ı ḳudsī" and "medḥ" give the campaign a religious meaning. The third couplet states plainly that all this praise has been spoken to prepare the chronogram line.

The chronogram line is "Bilād-ı Üngürüsi eyledi fetḥ". Written in the usual Ottoman spelling (بلاد انکروسی ایلدی فتح), the sum of the ebced values of its letters is 927, which corresponds to 927/1521, the year Belgrade was taken. Since the original Arabic-script spelling of the line has not been seen, this calculation is not certain; in Kınalızâde's form "Engürüs", without the final letter "i", the total is 917. "Üngürüs" means Hungary; according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the Ottomans also called Belgrade "Tuna Belgradı" and "Üngürüs Belgradı" to distinguish it from other Belgrades.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi writes that this chronogram was spoken for the conquest of Belgrade. Kınalızâde, on the other hand, ties the poem to the time when Sultan Süleyman broke the idols of the unbelievers in the Hungarian lands, conquered them and added them to the lands of Islam; he does not name Belgrade. Kartal, following Âşık Çelebi, ties the poem to the conquest of Belgrade but gives the conquest as 925/1519. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Belgrade was conquered in 1521 (927) at the end of Süleyman's campaign into Hungary; the 927 yielded by the ebced reckoning agrees with this year.

The anthologies mention other chronograms by Basîrî as well. According to Âşık Çelebi, he composed a chronogram for the birth of Prince Cihangir with the line "Cihān gīred be-tevfīḳ-i İlāhī" (he takes the world with God's help), and fitted three chronograms into a single line for the conquest of Rhodes (929). These chronograms show that Basîrî went on presenting poems in palace circles in Süleyman's reign as well and followed the great events of the time. The Belgrade chronogram is one of the few Turkish examples of his poems addressed to the sultan that have survived.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 182, entry on Basîrî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2017 (e-book), p. 236, entry on Basîrî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

Books

Online sources