Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün
Görürüm sizde tenāḳużları ḥadd-i nevfer
Hep müʾevvel didiñiz muḥkem-i şerʿ-i enver
Müteşābihleri bāzīçe-i evhām iderek
Oldıñız cümle-i küffār-ı cihāndan ekfer
In English
1. I see in you contradictions beyond measure; you called all the clear rulings of the luminous Sharia "interpreted".
2. Making the ambiguous verses a plaything of fancies, you became more unbelieving than all the unbelievers of the world.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Resting on the method of exegesis, this kıta is one of the last links in the polemic against the Bektashis. The seventh verse of the sura Âl 'Imrân divides the verses of the Qur'an into the "muhkem", whose meaning is clear and firm, and the "müteşâbih", whose meaning is veiled, and says that those in whose hearts is a swerving follow the ambiguous. Cûdî turns this division against those he addresses.
The poet's charge is a method turned upside down: those addressed render the clear rulings ineffective by interpretation, while making the veiled verses a plaything of their fancies. So what is firm becomes uncertain, and what is uncertain becomes fixed at will. The heavy charge of unbelief at the end of the kıta shows how harsh the polemic of this section becomes; it cannot be read as impartial testimony about a community of faith.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 44 (poem no. 199; manuscript fol. 53b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
