Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ
Burhānıdır İḥyā vü ʿulūmu'd-dīniñ
Kim dīnde nedir mertebe-i temkīniñ
Kimyā-yı saʿādet ne büyük gencīne
Olmaz o ḳadar ŝerveti bir zengīniñ
In English
1. The Ihyâ' 'Ulûm al-Dîn is the proof of who is what in religion, of the rank of (your) steadfastness.
2. What a great treasure the Kîmiyâ-yi Sa'âdat is! No rich man has so much wealth.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Two book titles, the Ihyâ' and the Kîmiyâ, make up the second quatrain of the al-Ghazâlî series. The "Ihyâ' 'ulûm al-dîn", the revival of the religious sciences, is al-Ghazâlî's great work treating religious life as a whole, from worship to ethics, from the states of the heart to death, and was among the most read books in Ottoman madrasa and lodge circles. The "Kîmiyâ-yi sa'âdat", the alchemy of happiness, is his work telling the same thoughts more briefly in Persian.
The quatrain uses the titles of the books together with their own meanings: the Ihyâ' is a "burhân", a decisive proof; the Kîmiyâ-yi Sa'âdat is a "gencîne", a treasure, and no rich man's wealth can match it. The word "kîmiyâ" here also recalls the old belief of alchemy that turns base metal into gold: al-Ghazâlî's book is an elixir that turns the soul to happiness. The poet of "Dakk-ı Müdik", the kaside that mocks the madrasa textbooks, keeps al-Ghazâlî's works outside that mockery.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 110 (poem no. 260; manuscript fol. 78a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
