Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Bir tuḥfe-i lāhūtsuñ el-ḥaḳ beşere
Ey muʿcize-i bāhire-i muʿtebere
Pirāye idiñ levḥ-i ḳadīm-i ḳadere
Reşk-i felek itdiñ yeri indikde yere
In English
1. Truly you are a gift to mankind from the divine realm (lâhût); O shining, esteemed miracle!
2. You were the ornament of the eternal tablet of destiny; when you came down to earth you made the earth the envy of the heavens.
Literary and Historical Commentary
This quatrain, which follows the sura quatrains, addresses the Qur'an as a whole and places it between two places, in heaven and on earth. The Qur'an is first the ornament of "levh-i kadîm-i kader", the Preserved Tablet on which everything is written; then it comes down to earth, and this descent gives the earth a worth that even the heavens envy. "Lâhût" is the Sufi name for the divine realm; the Qur'an is a "tuhfe", a gift, sent to man from this realm.
The quatrain's rhyme is built with the words "beşere", "mu'tebere", "kadere" and "yere"; all four lines end in the same sound. The wording "yere indikde yere" in the last line uses the same word twice and makes the descent heard at the level of sound as well. The earth making the sky envious is a reversal of the usual order; for in divan poetry the earth mostly aspires to what is in heaven. Here, with the descent of revelation, the earth becomes a place the sky envies.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 100 (poem no. 85; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
