Original Arabic Text

وجّهتُ فؤادی وتوجّهتُ الیک
سلّمتُ بک القلبَ وصلّیتُ علیک
لاالشمسُ تُفاهیکَ ولا البدرُ یُبین
لیی الفلکُ الدائرُ یُبدی مثلیک

Reading in Latin letters (the reading is ours):

Veccehtu fu'âdî ve teveccehtu ileyk
Sellemtu bike'l-ḳalbe ve ṣalleytu ʿaleyk
Le'ş-şemsu tufâhîke ve le'l-bedru yubîn
Lî'l-feleku'd-dâ'iru yubdî misleyk

In English

1. I turned my heart and turned myself towards you; I surrendered my heart to you and called blessings upon you.

2. Neither does the sun vie with you, nor does the full moon shine (like you); the turning sphere cannot show me your like. (The reading and sense of the last line are not certain.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

"Veccehtu", I turned my face: with these words of turning and surrender the second Arabic quatrain to the Prophet opens. The word recalls the phrase recited at the beginning of the ritual prayer and found in the Qur'an as Abraham's words, "I have turned my face to Him who created the heavens and the earth" (al-An'âm 6:79); but here the turning is directed to the Prophet, to love for him and to blessings upon him. The words "selemtu" and "salleytu", I surrendered and I called blessings, in the first couplet are bound together by the same texture of sound.

The second couplet uses a well-known comparison of divan poetry: the Prophet's beauty cannot be measured against the sun and the full moon. This wording, close to the language of old kasides that liken the Prophet to the full moon, turns here into a claim of superiority; neither sun nor moon can vie with him. The last line seems to say that the turning sphere cannot show his like, but in the setting of the thesis the particle of negation does not clearly appear, and the reading cannot be settled.

The thesis gives the Arabic text only in Arabic script, without translation. The reading in Latin letters and the translation are therefore ours; the first word of the last line and the structure of the verb could also be read otherwise.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 97 (poem no. 75; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources