Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ
Pīr ehl-i ṭarīḳatde, revāfıżda ʿalī
Hem mertebe-i evṣāf-ı ālih ezelī
Olmaz uyumaz ḳādir ü ḥay ü ḳayyūm
Allāhı çaġır hey ulu meftūnu delī
"yāḫūd" Senden elini çekmiş olandan el çek
Allāh di ki ḳuldan ebedī çekmez eli
In English
1. Among the people of the path the master, among the Rejecters 'Alî (is held) of the rank of the divine attributes, pre-eternal.
2. Call on God, who does not die, does not sleep, the Almighty, the Living, the Self-Subsisting, hey, you great infatuated madman!
3. Or: let go the hand of the one who has let go of yours; say "God", for He never lets go of His servant's hand.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The whole subject of the preceding polemical kıtas comes down in this quatrain to a single counsel. The first two lines show the target of the criticism: the people of the Sufi path raise their master, and the Shi'i circles the poet calls "revâfız" raise 'Alî, to the rank of the divine attributes. The third and fourth lines name the divine attributes of the Throne Verse: God is the Living and the Self-Subsisting, neither slumber nor sleep overtakes Him (al-Baqara 2:255). The poet tells whoever names a human being with these attributes to call on God alone.
The copyist noted another wording for the last two lines, introduced with "yâhud", or, and this second wording softens the polemical tone: let go the hand of whoever has let go of yours; say "God", for He never lets go of His servant's hand. This is a calmer conclusion that proposes trusting God directly in place of attachment to a guide or master. That both endings of the quatrain are preserved agrees with the other examples in the divan that show Cûdî reworking his poems.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 45 (poem no. 200; manuscript fol. 53b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
