Original Arabic Text
ای مصحف اقدی صحف مطّهره
قد سلَّمکَ اللهُ بِاَیدی سَفَرَه
مَا مسَّکَ اِلاّ بِیَدٍ طاهرةٍ
قَد خَطَّکَ بِالنُورِ کِرامٌ بَرَرَهَ
Reading in Latin letters (the reading is ours):
Ey Muṣḥafu aḳdesi ṣuḥufin muṭahhara
Ḳad sellemeke'llâhu bi-eydî sefera
Mâ messeke illâ bi-yedin ṭâhiratin
Ḳad ḫaṭṭake bi'n-nûri kirâmun berera
In English
1. O Mushaf, holiest of purified pages! God delivered you by the hands of the envoy angels.
2. None touched you but a pure hand; noble and righteous (scribes) wrote you with light.
Literary and Historical Commentary
This Arabic quatrain, placed among the sura quatrains, praises not a particular sura but the written copy of the Qur'an, the "Mushaf". Its words all seem drawn from the Qur'an. The sura 'Abasa says the Qur'an is "in honoured pages, exalted and purified, in the hands of envoys, noble and righteous" (80:13-16); the quatrain's words "suhufin mutahhara", "bi-eydî sefera" and "kirâmun berera" repeat these verses. The third line recalls the verse of the sura al-Wâqi'a, "none touch it but the purified" (56:79).
The quatrain's conceit is that it turns these verses into a scene of writing and books. The Mushaf was delivered by God through the hands of envoy angels, only pure hands have touched it, and its scribes wrote it "with light". That a poet who often takes the pen and writing as his subject should speak of the Qur'an like a calligrapher's work, a book written with light, is a detail worth noticing.
The Arabic text stands in the thesis without transcription, in Arabic script only. The word printed "اقدی" in the first line we have read, as sense and structure require, as "اقدس", holiest; both the reading in Latin letters and the translation are ours.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. None (poem no. 81; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
