Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün

Müsemmâ perdesin çün sâlib oldu
Semâya irtifâ’a tâlib oldu
Çün âdem sırra semâya irişdi
Merâyâdan cemâle gâlib oldu
Su’ûd-ı tayyibâta sâlih a’mâl
Kulûbe nisbeten çün kâlib oldu
Ene’l-hakk ismidir Mansûrı dâre
Çeküb semt-i semâya sâlib oldu
Huzûra rağbetinden gör ki Îsâ
Çekildi habl-i şer’a hâlib oldu
Anınçün nâzil oldu kevn-i esmâ
Müsemmâyı semâya câlib oldu
Hicâbî ref’ ü nasb esmâya târîh
Bil es-Seyyid Muhammed Gâlib oldu (1230)

In English

1. He who stripped away the veil covering the Named, the true being behind the name, became a traveller longing to rise to heaven.

2. When man reached the secret of heaven, he passed beyond the reflections in the mirrors to the true Beauty, the beauty of God, and prevailed over the mirrors.

3. In the ascent of good words to God, righteous deeds became a mould for the hearts, a body that carries them.

4. "Ene'l-Hak" (I am the Truth) is such a name that it drew Mansûr, that is, Hallâc, to the gallows; the one who hanged him in fact raised him towards heaven.

5. See how Jesus, out of longing for God's presence, was drawn up to heaven and became one who draws upon and holds the rope of the sacred law. The couplet can be read in two ways; what exactly the word "hâlib" means here is uncertain, and the rendering is ours.

6. For this reason the world of names came down, and it became the one that draws the Named up to heaven.

7. O Hicâbî, compose a chronogram for the raising and appointing (ref' ü nasb) of the names: know that it became "es-Seyyid Muhammed Gâlib", that is, this name was raised and prevailed (1230).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a seven-couplet chronogram kıt'a. Hüsameddin calls it a "kıt'a", but because its first couplet rhymes within itself it resembles a short ghazal (gazel) in form. The second lines of all the couplets end with the redif (refrain word) "oldu"; the rhyme is built on the sounds "-âlib": sâlib, tâlib, gâlib, kâlib, sâlib, hâlib, câlib and, at the very end, Gâlib. It is clear that the rhyme was chosen with the name of the pasha being praised, Gâlib, in mind; the poem thus prepares this name from beginning to end for the last line. The metre is the aruz (quantitative metre) pattern mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün; this identification is ours. The first line of the second couplet, as printed in the edition, does not fit this pattern exactly; on the basis of the metre and of the poem's theme of the names (esmâ), it may be thought that the line originally read "sırr-ı esmâya", but this is a conjecture and the text has been left as it stands in the edition.

The last line is a chronogram line. Hüsameddin gives the year 1230 in brackets. When the letters of the words "es-Seyyid Muhammed Gâlib" are added up by the ebced (abjad) system (السيد 105, محمد 92, غالب 1033) they give exactly 1230; this calculation is ours. The poet thus set the date directly in the pasha's name and called the reader to the reckoning with the word "bil" (know). The hijri year 1230 falls between December 1814 and November 1815.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole structure of the kıt'a rests on two pairs of ideas. The first is the Sufi distinction between ism and müsemmâ, the name and the Named: the names of God make Him known on the one hand and on the other are veils that cover Him. In the first couplet the traveller who lifts this veil longs to rise to heaven; in the sixth couplet the world of names comes down and draws the Named up to heaven. The "merâyâ" (mirrors) of the second couplet rest on the idea of the created world as mirrors reflecting divine beauty; when man reaches the secret he is no longer content with reflections and attains Beauty itself.

The second pair is the idea of "ref'", being raised, and the poem works it out through examples drawn from the Qur'an. The third couplet rests on the verse of Sura Fâtır meaning "To Him ascends the good word, and the righteous deed raises it": "su'ûd-ı tayyibât" and "sâlih a'mâl" correspond to the words of the verse. The fourth and fifth couplets set two ascents side by side. Hallâc-ı Mansûr was drawn to the gallows for saying "Ene'l-Hak"; the poet calls the one who hanged him "sâlib" and says that in this way he raised Mansûr towards heaven. According to Sura Nisâ, however, Jesus was not crucified; God raised him to Himself. When the words "salebûhu" (they crucified him) and "rafa'ahu" (He raised him) in the verse are considered together with the rhyme word "sâlib" and the idea of "ref'" in the poem, it becomes clear that the couplets rest on these verses. In the first couplet "sâlib" means the one who strips away the veil, in the fourth the one who hangs; the use of the same rhyme word in two senses is an example of tevriye (double entendre).

The last couplet ties all these ascents to the pasha. "Ref' ü nasb" are the terms of Arabic grammar for two cases of the noun, the nominative and the accusative, and they also mean rising and appointment to an office. By speaking of applying ref' and nasb to "the names", the poet celebrates, through a grammatical term, the rise in the pasha's rank and his appointment as governor, and then draws the date of this rise from the pasha's own name. The words "Gâlib oldu" also have two senses: they read both as "the name became Gâlib" and as "he prevailed". Celebrating a statesman's appointment at the end of a Sufi narrative of ascent built on Mansûr, Jesus and the world of names is an attitude found in the chronogram poems of tekke (dervish lodge) poets.

Historical Context

Hüsameddin relates how the kıt'a came to be written. Hicâbî's lodge at Ziyâre had become a place of call for the viziers and statesmen who came to Amasya; Caniklizâde Tayyâr Mahmûd Pasha, the governor of Sivas Cebbârzâde Celâleddîn Mehmed Pasha, Pehlivân İbrâhim Pasha and Zaralızâde Lutfullâh Pasha had visited the sheikh and given him gifts. According to Hüsameddin, in 1230 es-Seyyid Gâlib Mehmed Pasha came to Amasya as governor of Sivas and visited the lodge, whereupon Hicâbî presented this kıt'a to him and received many favours from the pasha. Hüsameddin also explains one reason for this attention: in 1224 (1809-10) Hicâbî had joined the Russian war with several thousand students and disciples, had distinguished himself and become known among statesmen as the "Gâzi Şeyh" (the warrior sheikh).

The pasha's identity could not be fully established. The fact that the name bears both the titles "es-Seyyid" and "Gâlib" calls to mind Seyyid Mehmed Said Gâlib Pasha, who later became grand vizier. According to Orhan F. Köprülü's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Gâlib Pasha was the son of Seyyid Ahmed Efendi and was appointed in mid-1814, with the rank of vizier, to the sanjaks of Bolu and Viranşehir; the article does not mention a governorship of Sivas. It is therefore a possibility, not a certainty, that the pasha to whom the kıt'a was presented was Mehmed Said Gâlib Pasha. For Hicâbî's life and his lodge, see the site's article Hicâbî Baba and Halkalı Evliya.

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