Original Persian Text
حق کفت که حق نور سماوات وزمین
مابین سماوات و زمین نیز چنین
چون ماو شما نور خداییم، چرا
بینای خوداینم، خدارا نا بین
Reading in Latin letters (the reading is ours):
Ḥaḳ goft ki Ḥaḳ nûr-ı semâvât u zemîn
Mâ-beyn-i semâvât u zemîn nîz çenîn
Çün mâ vu şumâ nûr-ı Ḫudâyîm çirâ
Bînâ-yı ḫodîm Ḫudâ-râ nâ-bîn
In English
1. God said, "God is the light of the heavens and the earth"; and so too is all that lies between the heavens and the earth.
2. Since we and you are the light of God, why do we see ourselves and not see God?
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Light Verse of the sura al-Nûr, "God is the light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35), is one of the most interpreted verses of the Qur'an, and this Persian quatrain is built on it. The poet quotes the verse in the first line and extends it in the second: everything between the heavens and the earth is that light too. From this a question arises: if we and you are the light of God, why do we see ourselves and not see God?
The answer to the question is not given in the quatrain, but it is spoken openly in other poems of the divan: man's selfhood is a veil, and whoever sees himself cannot see the light appearing in him. In the ghazal "Âyîne Karşısında" it was said that the image in the mirror is in truth a mazhar, a place of manifestation; this quatrain asks the same thought as a question. In the Arabic-script setting of the thesis the first word of the last line is printed "خوداینم"; here it has been read "ḫodîm", ourselves. Both the reading and the translation were made here.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 104 (poem no. 99; manuscript fol. 36a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
