Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Eyler feyeżān feyż-i vücūd-ı ḥaḳḳ dād
Endāme göre ḫilʿat alır istiʿdād
Īcād-ı ʿādem ṣanma hem iʿdām-ı vücūd
İʿdām-ı ʿadem maʿnī-i lafẓ-ı īcād
In English
1. God's bounty of being overflows in giving; each capacity receives a robe of honour (hil'at) fitted to its stature.
2. Do not think that creating means bringing nonbeing into being and destroying being; the meaning of the word "îcâd" (creation) is the destruction of nonbeing.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The title "Zübde-i Esrâr-ı Tasavvufiyye, Umde-i Akâid-i Vücûdiyye" means the essence of the Sufi secrets, the mainstay of the "vücûdiyye" creed. "Vücûdiyye" is the name given to those who hold the doctrine of the unity of being. Beside the summary of the Sunni creed given in the preceding Turkish quatrain, this quatrain sets a definition of creation from the viewpoint of the unity of being.
In the first couplet creation is described as an emanation, an overflowing. Being overflows from God, and each thing takes a share of this being in the measure of its capacity; to put it in a tailor's image, each capacity wears a robe cut to its stature. The second couplet rests on a fine definition of a word. Creating is not drawing something out of nonbeing; for nonbeing is not a thing from which something could come. "Îcâd", bringing into being, is in truth the removal of nonbeing, the wiping away of what hinders being from appearing. This definition is a short formula of the doctrine of the unity of being, which holds that being is one and belongs to God, and that created things are manifestations of that being.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 105 (poem no. 103; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
