Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ
Ḫāḳ-ı ḳıdem-i ḥażret-i ġazālīyim
Ḥayrānım o irşāda o ḫoş telḳīne
İḫlāṣ ü tevāżuʿda beyān-ı ḥaḳda
Tercīḥ iderim Ḥażret-i Muḥyiddīne
In English
1. I am the dust of the feet of His Excellency al-Ghazâlî; I am in awe of that guidance, that fine instruction.
2. In sincerity, in humility and in expressing the truth, I prefer (him) to His Excellency Muhyiddîn.
Literary and Historical Commentary
An open preference closes the last quatrain of the al-Ghazâlî series: in sincerity, humility and the expression of truth, the poet prefers al-Ghazâlî to "His Excellency Muhyiddîn", that is, Muhyiddîn Ibn 'Arabî (d. 1240). Ibn 'Arabî, as the greatest systematizer of the idea of the unity of being, had a deep influence on Ottoman Sufism; his works were the subject of both great admiration and debate.
Cûdî addresses both masters respectfully as "Hazret"; the preference should not be taken for a rejection; it is a choice of style and stance. Al-Ghazâlî's plain and didactic language and his way that sets sincerity and humility in front agree with the Sufism kept within the Sharia that the poet defends in his divan. The divan's ghazals on the unity of being show that Cûdî was no stranger to Ibn 'Arabî's thought; his own model, however, he found in al-Ghazâlî.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 110 (poem no. 261; manuscript fol. 78a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
