Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Outside the rubai metre (no metre is given in the thesis)
ʿĀlemi tezyīf idiyorsuñ diyerek ḳāl-i yeḳūl
Olmasa ḳāl-i yeḳūl añlaşılır mı bu nuḳūl
Vehm ile “ẕevḳ” diyu zuġma ḳapılmakdan ise
Şübhesiz ḳavl ile eyler ʿamel aṣḥāb-ı ʿuḳūl
In English
1. They make talk, saying "you belittle the world"; but were there no talk, could these reports be understood?
2. Rather than being caught by a fancy called "taste" through mere imagining, the people of reason no doubt act on the basis of the word.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The debate of the previous quatrain goes on here as the answer to an objection. Because he questioned the claims of unveiling and taste, the poet seems to have been accused of "belittling the world", of making light of the great. His answer is a defence of knowledge resting on the word and on transmission: were there no debate, belittled as "kîl ü kâl", idle talk, how would transmitted knowledge be understood?
The last word is a choice: rather than being caught by a fancy which imagination calls "taste", the people of reason must act on "kavl", the word and the proof. Here the madrasa tradition of reason and transmission is set against claims of knowledge resting on personal experience. Read together, the two quatrains show that Cûdî, although he uses the language of Sufism in many places in his divan, holds a kalâm-minded stance on the measure of knowledge.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 116 (poem no. 143; manuscript fol. 39b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
