Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿilün mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ)
Nevʿiyyeti zevciyyeti kim fāṣıldır
Iṭlāḳda taḥṣīṣi ne şey ḳāfildir
Taḥḳīḳ-i ṣıfātı bilir ancak islām
Aldanma ki bunda hepsi kör cāhildir
In English
1. Who is it that separates species and pairing? What a heedless thing (to seek) a specification in the absolute! (The couplet is not entirely clear.)
2. Only Islam knows the truth of the (divine) attributes; do not be deceived, in this matter (the others) are all blind and ignorant.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The knowledge of God's attributes, an abstract question of kalâm, is the subject here. The "nev'iyyet" and "zevciyyet" of the first couplet, specificity and pairing, are philosophical terms describing the division of beings into species and pairs; "ıtlâk" and "tahsîs", absoluteness and specification, express the tension between God's unbounded being and the effort to attribute particular qualities to Him. The reading in the thesis does not fully settle the sense of this couplet; the English prose is therefore offered as a suggestion.
The debate ends on a sharp judgement in the second couplet: only Islam knows the truth of the attributes, the others are "kör câhil", blind and ignorant, in this matter. This harsh verdict is in tune with the voice of the divan's polemical poems on Christianity and philosophy. Cûdî uses the terms of his kalâm training in verse with ease; yet in the moulds of aruz they build a dense language not easily understood.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 111 (poem no. 127; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
