Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlün mefʿūlün faʿ
Ey mürşid-i yektā-yı cihān ġazālī
Tebcīl iderim sendeki istikmāli
Sen ḥüccetü'l-islāmsıñ aʿlāmıñdır
Tenfīz-i diyānetde velī vü vālī
In English
1. O peerless guide of the world, Ghazâlî, I extol the perfection that is in you.
2. You are the Proof of Islam, (this) is your banner; in carrying out religion you are both saint and governor.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Three quatrains in praise of al-Ghazâlî follow one another in the divan, and this one opens the series. Abû Hâmid al-Ghazâlî (d. 1111) is the great scholar named in the history of Islamic thought by the epithet "Hüccetü'l-İslâm", the Proof of Islam; Cûdî uses this epithet directly in the third line. In the kıta on the previous page al-Ghazâlî's view likening the heart to a pool was mentioned; this series continues that interest.
The play of sound "velî vü vâlî" in the last line gives al-Ghazâlî two kinds of authority: the velî, the spiritual figure who is God's friend, and the vâlî, the official who governs a province. For the poet al-Ghazâlî is the authority of both the heart and the rule in carrying out religion. Given the divan's criticisms of madrasa philosophy and of the corrupted state of Sufism, it is meaningful that al-Ghazâlî is chosen as an example who defended both the Sharia and Sufism together.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 110 (poem no. 259; manuscript fol. 77b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
