Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Eczā-yı cihān, cümle bu aʿrāż u mevād
Muḥdeŝdir anıñ muḥdiŝi ḫallāḳ-ı ʿibād
Yoḳ ḳudretine ʿilmine bir emr-i muḥāl
Mevcūd-ı ʿadīm eyler ʿadīmi īcād
In English
1. The parts of the world, all these accidents and materials, have come into being; the one who brought them into being is the Creator of His servants.
2. Nothing is impossible to His power and His knowledge; the Existent without equal brings the non-existent into being.
Literary and Historical Commentary
A Summary of the Creed
This quatrain, titled "Hulâsa-i İ'tikâd-ı Ehl-i Sünnet", a summary of the creed of the Sunnis, fits a topic of the books of kalâm into four lines. The world, that is, all the parts of the universe, "a'râz u mevâd", accidents and materials, has been created in time, is "muhdes"; and the "muhdis" who brought them into being is God. The idea that the world came to be in time while God is eternal is the most basic thesis of Sunni kalâm against the philosophers who held that the world is eternal. This idea, which the poet also defends in other poems against the materialist views of his time, is given here like the summary of a lesson.
The last line closes with a pun: "Mevcûd-ı adîm eyler adîmi îcâd." The first "adîm" qualifies God in the sense of "without equal"; the second "adîm" means non-existent. The Existent without equal brings the non-existent into being. The quatrain that follows this one in the thesis, describing the "vücûdiyye" creed, takes up the same question of creation from the viewpoint of the unity of being; read together, the two quatrains show the poet setting the accounts of creation of kalâm and of Sufism side by side.
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. 101; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
