Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eight-syllable syllabic metre

Veçh-in harfi ümmül- kitap
Arif okur eyler hesap
Dü Çeşmim Hasan-Hüseyin
Lebin Zeynal-Bakır hübab
İki Enfin Cafer Kâzım
Kaşın Rıza, Tâki Mihrab
Kaşların Nâki-Askeri
Alnın Mehti’yi âfitab
Fedayi budur Ümmül-Kur’an
Allah’u A’lem Bis-Sevap.

In English

1. The letters of the face are the Umm al-Kitab, the Mother of the Book; the gnostic reads it and works out its reckoning.

2. My two eyes are Hasan and Hüseyin; your lip is Zeynelâbidîn and Bâkır (the meaning of the word "hübab" at the end of the line is not clear).

3. The two sides of your nose are Ja'far and Kâzım; your eyebrow is Rıza, the prayer niche is Takî.

4. Your eyebrows are Nakî and Askerî; your forehead is the Mahdi, it is the sun.

5. Fedâî says: this is the Mother of the Qur'an; God knows best what is right.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a short nefes of ten lines in the eight-syllable metre. In the source the first four lines are given as a quatrain and the remaining six lines in pairs; here they have been arranged as five couplets. The rhyme beginning with "kitap, hesap" continues with the words "hübab, mihrab, âfitab, sevap"; the structure recalls the pattern of a ghazal. The pen name appears in the last couplet. The page of the poem in the divan is not given in the transmission.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The nefes compresses a Hurufi-derived idea into ten lines: the human face is a book, and the letters of that book are the twelve imams. In the first couplet the letters of the face are counted as the "Umm al-Kitab", the essence of the Qur'an. Then each part of the face is assigned to an imam: the two eyes Hasan and Hüseyin, the lip Zeynelâbidîn and Bâkır, the nose Ja'far and Kâzım, the eyebrow Rıza, the prayer niche Takî, the eyebrows Nakî and Askerî, the forehead the Mahdi. Here "mihrab" (prayer niche) appears to be used as the name for the point where the eyebrows meet or for the arch of the brow. In the last couplet the poet says that this correspondence is the "Mother of the Qur'an" and closes with "Allahu a'lam bi's-sawab" (God knows best what is right); this ending suggests that what has been said is a secret whose interpretation is left to the initiated.

Cafer Özdemir notes that Fedâî expressed some deep subjects through letters and symbols so that only the initiated would understand them, that this approach passed into Bektashism from Hurufism, and that the poet found the essence of all created beings in the being of man. The line "Âdemdir ümmü'l-Kur'an Sebü'l-mesânî", which he quotes from the same divan, states the idea of this nefes in a single line. Placing the twelve imams on the face combines the love of the imams in Alevi-Bektashi faith with the Hurufi tradition of "reading the face".

Bibliography

Online sources