Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün feʿūlün

İdüp refʿi-yedeyn Allāhu Ekber
Deḫaletü'l-mescideyn Allāhu Ekber
Yere baṣdım başım degdi semāya
Benimle ṭoldu beyn Allāhu Ekber
Ḳıyām itdim ḥużūrumdan ṣavuşdı
Metā vü keyf ü eyn Allāhu Ekber
Rükūʿ itdim baş egdi ḫāḳ u eflāk
Ŝüreyyā, ferḳadeyn Allāhu Ekber
Sücūdumla düşüp maḥv-ı vücūda
Silindi naḳş-ı ʿayn Allāhu Ekber
Beḳā-billāh da oldı cāy-ı temkīn
Ḳuʿūd-ı eşhedeyn Allāhu Ekber
Duʿālımdan selāmetdir selāmım
Ödendi cümledeyn Allāhu Ekber

In English

1. Raising both hands, "God is greatest"; the entry into the two mosques, "God is greatest".

2. I set foot on the ground and my head touched the sky; what lies between filled with me, "God is greatest".

3. I stood up in prayer; "when", "how" and "where" slipped away from my presence, "God is greatest".

4. I bowed; earth and heavens, the Pleiades and the two Farqad stars bowed their heads, "God is greatest".

5. Falling in my prostrations into the effacement of being, the image of the self was wiped away, "God is greatest".

6. Subsistence in God too became the place of composure: the sitting of the two testimonies, "God is greatest".

7. My greeting is safety from (a word of uncertain reading); all debts were paid, "God is greatest".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Each movement of the ritual prayer, taken in order, receives a Sufi meaning in the ghazal "Namâz". Every couplet ends with the refrain "Allâhu Ekber", God is greatest; this takbir is the word said when passing from one movement of the prayer to the next, and in the ghazal too it marks the passage from couplet to couplet. The rhymes are built with the Arabic dual ending: yedeyn (two hands), mescideyn (two mosques), beyn (between), eyn (where), ferkadeyn (the two Farqads), ayn, eşhedeyn (the two testimonies), deyn (debt).

The ghazal follows the order of the prayer: the opening takbir with raised hands, the standing, the bowing, the prostration, the sitting and the closing greeting. In the standing, the categories "when, how, where", that is time, quality and place, withdraw from the presence of the one praying; in the bowing, the earth, the heavens, the Pleiades and the two Farqad stars of the Little Bear bow with him. The prostration is "the wiping away of being", that is, the Sufi station of annihilation; the sitting that follows is matched with "bekâ billâh", the station of subsistence in God. The word "deyn", debt, in the last couplet closes the ghazal with a turn that thinks of the prayer as a debt paid. Placing concepts such as annihilation and subsistence in the steps of an act of worship is a fine example of the divan's effort to keep Sufism within the Sharia.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 61-62 (poem no. 216; manuscript fol. 60a-60b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources