Original Persian Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

افتخار فضلا لطفی مقتول که او
بود در جمله فضائل بهمه ملك فرید
İftihâr-ı fuzalâ Lutfî-i maktûl ki û
Bûd der cümle fezâ'il be-heme mülk ferîd
چونکه اهل حسد او را ز تعصب کشتند
کشت تاریخ وفاتش ولقد مات شهید
Çün-ki ehl-i hased û-râ ze-ta‘assub kuştend
Geşt târîh-i vefâteş "ve-le-kad mâte şehîd"

In English

1. Lutfî, the pride of the learned, he who was slain, was the one without peer in every virtue and in every land.

2. When the envious killed him out of bigotry, the date of his death became the words "And truly he died a martyr".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This two-couplet Persian kıt‘a (short poem) is a chronogram: when the numerical values that the letters of the Arabic phrase at the end of the last line carry in the ebced reckoning are added up, they give the year of death. Ebced is the old system that assigns a number to each letter of the Arabic alphabet. "و ل ق د" (ve-le-kad) makes 140, "م ا ت" (mâte) 441 and "ش ه ی د" (şehîd) 319; the total is 900, the hijri year 900 (1495) in which Molla Lütfî was put to death. In the sixth volume of the Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya) the phrase is printed as "ولقدمان"; if the last letter is read as "ن" the total does not reach 900, so it has been corrected to "مات" (mâte) in the text. In the third line "او راز تعصب" has also been divided as "او را ز تعصب". The metre is the remel pattern "fâ‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün" of aruz (quantitative metre); the second line does not fit the pattern exactly. The metre is not stated in the source; the Latin-script reading, the identification of the metre and the meaning are ours. The rhyme of the kıt‘a is the sound "-îd" in the words "ferîd" and "şehîd".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet praises the dead teacher: Lutfî is the pride of the learned and without peer in every virtue and in every land. The word "maktûl" (slain) placed beside his name, however, sets a silent accusation within the praise; Lutfî did not die a natural death, he was killed. The second couplet states this accusation openly: the envious killed him out of bigotry. The words "hased" (envy) and "ta‘assub" (bigotry) imply that the trial leading to Lutfî's execution was a matter not of learning but of jealousy and narrow-mindedness. The last phrase, "ve-le-kad mâte şehîd", both yields the date and pronounces the verdict: the man executed on a charge of heresy is a martyr. That a chronogram line should carry such a judgement together with its numerical value makes this one of the most forceful examples of the chronogram tradition.

Historical Context

Molla Lütfî was a scholar from Tokat; according to Hüsameddin he was a pupil of Sinan Paşa and Ali Kuşçu and a skilled researcher in the rational and transmitted sciences. Envied by members of the learned hierarchy, he was executed on a charge of heresy (zındıklık) in Rebiülahir of the year 900. Kemalpaşazâde was at this time one of the students who had attended Lütfî's lessons. According to Hüsameddin the kıt‘a offended the great men of the time who had taken Lütfî's life: Grand Vizier Çandarlı İbrâhim Paşa, the kazasker of Rumelia Hacı Hasanzâde Mehmed Efendi, the kazasker of Anatolia Çorumluzâde Ali Efendi, Hatibzâde Muhyiddin Efendi and Molla İzârî; for Lütfî used to belittle these men in his lessons and demolish Hatibzâde's works.

The attribution of the kıt‘a to Kemalpaşazâde is itself left openly uncertain in this story. According to Hüsameddin's note, Kemalpaşazâde wrote the couplets and gave them to some of his friends, and because he feared the great men the author's name was concealed; but Lütfî's enemies, weary of his tongue, believed that only Kemalpaşazâde could have written them, since his mastery of verse and prose was acknowledged by all. The information linking the kıt‘a to Kemalpaşazâde thus rests on the conviction of his contemporaries and on Hüsameddin's account; it is given here with the same reservation.

Bibliography

Online sources