Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Ādeme secde eger ḥaḳ u ḥaḳīḳatse baba
Kāfir olmazdı mesīḥāya ṭayan ehl-i hevā
Ādem-i kāmile taḫṣīṣ ile teʾvīl itme
Ādem-i kāmil idi rūḥ idi ḥattā ʿīsā
Ekmel-i ādem olan ḥażret-i ḫatem mürsel
Dedi mi ümmetine secde idiñ siz de baña
Ġālibā secdeye lāyıḳ olan ādem sizce
Şu kilise diregi eñseli şişmān bābā
Ṭabdırır kendine cāhilleri zındıḳ-ı laʿīn
Yoḳdur īmānı ki Allāhdan ide ḫavf ü ḥayā
Müslim evlādısıñız nefs ile şeyṭāna uyup
Olmayıñ tā bu ḳadar melʿabe-i suḫre-nümā

In English

1. Baba, if prostration to Adam is right and truth, the people of passion who lean on the Messiah (the Christians) would not be unbelievers.

2. Do not interpret (the prostration) by restricting it to "the perfect man"; Jesus too was a perfect man, indeed (God's) spirit.

3. Did the most perfect of men, his Excellency the Seal of the messengers, say to his community, "You too prostrate to me"?

4. It seems that for you the man worthy of prostration is this fat baba with a neck like a church pillar.

5. The accursed heretic makes the ignorant worship him; he has no faith to fear God and be ashamed.

6. You are the children of Muslims; do not follow the self and Satan and become such a plaything of mockery.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Addressing a "baba", this kıta carries on the debate over prostration to Adam through a theologian's chain of reasoning; in Bektashi lodges the sheikh bears that title. The first couplet draws a conclusion: if prostration to Adam showed the lawfulness of prostrating to a man, those who worship Jesus would not be counted unbelievers. The second couplet meets a possible objection in advance: to count the prostration as proper to "the perfect man" is no remedy either, for Jesus, named in the Qur'an as "a spirit from God", was also a perfect man.

The third couplet brings the strongest proof: even Muhammad, the most perfect of men, did not tell his community to prostrate to him. The fourth and fifth couplets turn the debate into a satire mocking the sheikh's appearance, repeating the image of the two-couplet satire before. The last couplet ends with a stern counsel and addresses its hearers as "children of Muslims": the poet does not see them as outside the religion, but tries to turn them back from an error.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 43-44 (poem no. 197; manuscript fol. 53a-53b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources