Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: müstef‘ilün / müstef‘ilün / müstef‘ilün / müstef‘ilün

El-ḥamdü lillāhi’l-‘aẓīm eş-şükrü billāhi’l-kerīm
Oldı baña luṭf-ı ‘amīm dostlar beni tebşīr idiñ
Sinnim benim sittīn iken baña felek pür-kīn iken
Me’yūs iken ġamgīn iken irişdi luṭfı Aḥmediñ
Bir cum‘a gün cāmi‘deyem bir müjde-ber geldi o dem
Didi bir oġluñ oldı hem aydın çeş(i)m idemediñ
Geldim ser-i bālīnine gūş-ı ‘abīr-āgīnine
Ba‘de’l-edā āyīnine didim Muḥammeddir adıñ
Oġul degil bir nūrdur rūşenger-i deycūrdur
Dīde vü dil mesrūrdur ḫurşīdi rūz-ı es‘adıñ
Hem Ni‘metullāhü’l-laḳab olasın ey ‘ālī-neseb
Meşhūr ola dillerde hep nām-ı şerīf-i emcediñ
Bu vālidiñ Vāżıḥ-‘alem tārīḫiñi itdi etem
Cum‘a günidür yā (…) di Ni‘metullāh mevlidiñ
Allāh mu‘ammer eylesün dünyāda ber-ter eylesün
Tefvīḳa maẓhar eylesün budur du‘āsı vālidiñ (1237)

In English

1. Praise be to God the Mighty, thanks be to God the Generous; an all-embracing grace has reached me, friends, give me the good news.

2. While I was sixty years old, while the firmament was full of spite towards me, while I was hopeless and sorrowful, the grace of Ahmed (the Prophet) reached me.

3. One Friday I was in the mosque; at that moment a bearer of good news came. You have a son, he said (the end of the line, as the edition reads it, means something like "have you not brightened your eyes").

4. I came to his bedside, to his ambergris-scented ear; after performing the rite of the call to prayer, I said: your name is Muhammed.

5. This is not a son but a light, the one who brightens the dark night. Eye and heart rejoice; the sun of the most auspicious day is yours.

6. O you of noble lineage, let your title also be Ni'metullah; may your honoured and glorious name be famous on every tongue.

7. This father of yours, Vâzıh by name, has completed your chronogram: it is Friday, O (...), say: the birth of Ni'metullah.

8. May God grant you long life, raise you high in the world, make you worthy of success; this is your father's prayer.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Babaarslan records this poem as "chronogram for the birth of his son Seyyid Muhammed Ni'metullah (1237)"; the year 1237 corresponds to 1821-22. The poem has eight couplets in the recez pattern "müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün". The first line of each couplet is divided into three segments that rhyme with one another ("‘aẓīm, kerīm, ‘amīm"; "sittīn, pür-kīn, ġamgīn"), and the second lines end in "-dıñ, -diñ". These internal rhymes give the poem a quick music close to that of a murabba. In the seventh couplet the edition marks a gap with "(…)"; the word must have been illegible in the manuscript. Because of this gap we could not check the chronogram. The (1237) at the end of the last line is the year given in the edition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem tells a father's joy in direct, unadorned language. The poet says he is sixty, that the firmament bears him a grudge and that he is without hope; the birth of his son is seen in this sorrowful life as the grace of the Prophet. The third and fourth couplets form almost a small narrative: the poet is at the Friday prayer when a messenger arrives and announces the birth; the poet goes home, recites the call to prayer into the baby's ear and names him Muhammed. In the fifth couplet the child is called "a light" and "the one who brightens the dark night"; this can also be read as a reply to the image of the dark star of fortune in Vâzıh's first ghazal. This connection is our interpretation. In the sixth couplet the child is given the title "Ni'metullah" (God's bounty), and in the last couplet the father ends the poem with prayers for long life and success.

Historical Context

The day of the birth is given in detail in the Dîvânçe, in the heading of another chronogram that follows this poem: the boy was born on Friday, the fourth of Cemâziyelevvel 1237, "while we were at the Friday prayer". According to the same heading, "Mazhar Efendi", known as Şerîf Bey, one of the senior clerks of the Imperial Council, also sent a chronogram in Persian and Arabic for the birth; Babaarslan notes that this and a few other chronograms belong not to Vâzıh but to other poets. Seyyid Muhammed Ni'metullah lived on in Amasya after his father. Hüsameddin writes that in 1237 Vâzıh gave up the trusteeship of the endowment of Şah Bula Hatun, which passed first to his elder son es-Seyyid Abdurrahman Efendi and, on his death in 1247, to his younger son es-Seyyid Ni'metullah Efendi. Babaarslan and Özçakmak identify only two sons from Vâzıh's chronograms, Ni'metullah and Ahmed Tayyib; the elder son Abdurrahman named by Hüsameddin does not appear in these two studies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: p. 1974-1975; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 73a). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1924-1930 (life and description of the Dîvânçe). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Fatma Özçakmak, "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7(26), 2021, pp. 255-278, p. 262.

Online sources