Original Text (Mixed Languages)

Heading: BİÑ İKİ YÜZ OTUZ YEDİ SENESİ CEMĀẔİYE’L-EVVEL AYINIÑ DÖRDÜNCİ GÜNİ MÜBĀREK CUM‘A GÜNİ BİZLER CUM‘A NAMĀZINDA İKEN ṬULŪ‘ İDEN OĠLUM SEYYİD MUḤAMMED Nİ‘METULLĀHIÑ TĀRĪḪ-İ MĪLĀDI İÇÜN ḪᵛĀCEGĀN-I DĪVĀN-I ‘İẒĀMDAN ŞERĪF BEG DİMEKLE ŞEHĪR ḲARINDAŞ-I EŞFAḲIM MAẒHAR EFENDİ ḤAŻRETLERİNİÑ BU MAḪLAṢLARINA İRSĀL BUYURDUḲLARI TĀRĪḪ-İ TĀM MĀ-LĀ-KELĀMLARIDIR. TĀRĪḪ

Metre: mef‘ūlü / fā‘ilātün / mef‘ūlü / fā‘ilātün

‘İrfān-penāh Vāżıḥ ey ẕāt-ı pür-feżā’il
Çeşmet be-rūşenī ber-yek pūr be-zār çün māh
Maẓhar be-goft ān-rā tārīḫ-i tām-ı Tāzī
سیّد محمّد جاء تم نعمة الله (1237)

Seyyid Muḥammed cā’e temme ni‘metu’llāh

In English

1. O Vâzıh, refuge of learning, O person full of virtues; may your eyes be bright: a son like the moon has been born.

2. Mazhar spoke a complete Arabic chronogram for him: "Seyyid Muhammed has come; God's blessing is complete."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets are not by Vâzıh but by his friend Mazhar Efendi. Babaarslan notes that four of the thirty poems in the chronogram section of the Dîvânçe belong to other poets; this is one of them. The heading in the manuscript reads: "This is the complete chronogram, beyond dispute, sent to this pen name (to me) by his excellency Mazhar Efendi, my most compassionate brother, famed as Şerîf Bey, of the hacegân (senior clerks) of the Imperial Council, for the date of birth of my son Seyyid Muhammed Ni'metullah, who was born on the fourth day of the month of Cemâziyelevvel in the year 1237, on the blessed day of Friday, while we were at the Friday prayer." The year 1237 corresponds to 1821-22. The poem is in Persian, while the last, date-giving line is in Arabic; the metre is the muzâri pattern "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün". We read the Arabic-script line from the edition's PDF page as an image; its Latin-script reading and the rendering of the Persian couplets are ours.

A chronogram (tarih) gives the year of an event through a phrase or line whose letters, added up by their numerical values (the ebced system), yield that year. The heading calls this chronogram "tām", that is, one in which the whole line enters the count. In the line "سیّد محمّد جاء تم نعمة الله", "Seyyid" gives 74, "Muḥammed" 92, "cā'e" (jīm, elif) 4, "temme" 440 and "Allāh" 66. If the round te (tā marbūṭa) at the end of "ni‘me" is counted as 5, the total stops at 841; if this letter is counted as 400 like an open te, the total becomes 1236, and if the hamza at the end of "cā'e" is also counted as 1, it reaches 1237. This calculation is ours; it shows that the chronogram matches the edition's 1237 only on the basis of these two counting choices.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet praises Vâzıh as "refuge of learning" and "a person full of virtues", then announces the birth with "çeşmet rûşen" (may your eyes be bright), the Persian phrase of glad tidings. The last part of this line ("ber-yek pūr be-zār çün māh") is not fully intelligible as read in the edition. "Pūr" means son in Persian; if "be-zār" is read as "bezād" (was born), the line gives the sense "a son like the moon has been born". The rendering above rests on this reading and is ours.

The Arabic chronogram line is a skilful find: the child's name, "Seyyid Muhammed Ni'metullah", appears in it complete. "Temme ni‘metu'llāh" (God's blessing is complete) is both a phrase of thanksgiving and the child's sobriquet; the word "temme" also creates a congruence (tenasüp) with "tām tārīḫ" (complete chronogram) in the heading. In the first line of the second couplet Mazhar uses his own pen name and announces that the chronogram is in Arabic ("Tāzī").

Historical Context

Seyyid Muhammed Ni'metullah is one of the two sons of Vâzıh whose names we learn from his chronograms. Vâzıh himself also wrote an eight-couplet chronogram for this birth (Chronogram 7). Özçakmak names Mazhar Efendi as one of Vâzıh's friends and states that he sent chronograms for the births of both Ni'metullah and Ahmed Tayyib. We could find nothing on Mazhar Efendi beyond what the headings in the Dîvânçe tell us. A second, single-couplet Turkish chronogram sent by Mazhar for the same birth follows this poem in the Dîvânçe (Chronogram 9).

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: p. 1975; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fols. 73a-73b). 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; chronograms and those by other poets: pp. 1929-1930). 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, pp. 262 and 275.

Online sources