Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

(Elf) Evvel ol Aḥaddur bî-zevâl
Birligine yoḳdur anuñ ḳîl ü ḳâl
(Bâ) Beḳâ oldur cihânda bî-gümân
Ḥaḳ buyurdı "Küllü men ‘aleyhâ fân"
(Tâ) Ta‘âlallâh yaratdı ‘âlemi
Anda mevcûd itdi cümle âdemi
(S̱â) S̱üreyyâdan s̱erâya dek ne var
Anuñ emri ile oldı âşikâr
(Cim) Cihânı yoġ iken var eyledi
Birligine mü’min iḳrâr eyledi
(Ḥâ) Ḥayât oldur viren ölmüşlere
Dest-gîr oldur ḳamu ḳalmışlara
(Ḫâ) Ḫayır şer her ne kim işlersen iş
Anuñ emrinsüz olunmaz biñ düriş
(Dâl) Devlet bulmaḳ isterseñ i ḳul
Emrile ol pâdişâhuñ her dem ol
(Ẕel) Ẕelîl ü ḫor olur emrin ṣıyan
‘Āḳıbet maḥrûm olur nefse uyan
(Râ-i) Râhın gözle güm-râh olmaġıl
Ḳıl ḥaẕer iblîse hem-râh olmaġıl
(Zâ-i) Zinhâr ol ḍalâletden berî
Bulmaḳ isterseñ behişt içre yeri
(Sin) Seni dögüp sögene ḳıl du‘â
Tâ şefî‘ ola Resûl-i Kibriyâ
(Şın) Şefî‘ olmaḳ dilerseñ ger Resûl
‘İlm-i tevḥîd ile dâ’im yoldaş ol
(Ṣâd) Ṣanduñ mı cihânı ber-ḳarâr
Ber-fenâdur âḫir olur târ-mâr
(Ḍâd) Żıdd ol nefsüñ ile her nefes
Geçmesün ‘ömrüñ cihân içre ‘abes̱
(Ṭâ) Ṭavâf itmek dilerseñ Mekke'yi
Her faḳîre ḫôr baḳma di eyi
(Ẓâ) Ẓulüm ‘âdet idinme kendüñe
Zîra ḫayr itmez saña öñden ṣoña
(Ayn) ‘Aynuñdan revân it yaş u ḳan
Her nefes nefsüñ elinden ḳıl fiġân
(Ġayn) Ġafletden uyar göñül gözin
Tâ göresin şübhesiz cennet yüzin
(Fâ) Fenâ ‘âlemden eylerseñ sefer
Ḥażret'e cürm ile varma ḳıl ḥaẕer
(Ḳâf) Ḳatl it nefsüñi ḫoş fâriġ ol
Kim ne dir ise disün sen ṣâdıḳ ol
(Kâf) Ger ṭaġlarca eylerseñ günâh
Tevbe ḳılsañ ‘afv ider anı İlâh
(Lâm) Lîkin tevbeyi terk itmegil
Ġaflet uyḫusıyla ġâfil yatmaġıl
(Mîm) Mihrî ‘âṣiyem bir rû-siyâh
Dergehüñe var ümîdüm yâ İlâh
(Nûn) Ne dil ile ḳılam medḥüñ beyân
Sen şehüñ medḥinde ‘âciz her lisân
(Vâv) Vay baña ki ḫayrum ẕerre yoḳ
Ṭapuña lâyıḳ ‘amel yoḳ cürm çoḳ
(Hâ) Hemân ey Ḥayy-i Rabbü'l-‘âlemîn
Fażluña ṣıġınmışumdur ben hemîn
(Lâmelif) Lâ dimezem noḳṣânuma
‘Afvuñı eyle şefî‘ ‘iṣyânuma
(Yâ) Yaratduñ beni ey Rabbü'l-enâm
Raḥmetüñi umaram yevmü'l-ḳıyâm

In English

1. (Alif) First, He is the One, without end; there is no dispute or idle talk about His oneness.

2. (Be) Without doubt, He alone is lasting in the world; God said, "Everything on earth will perish." (Qur'an, Sura al-Rahman 55:26.)

3. (Te) God Most High created the universe and brought into being within it all human beings.

4. (Se) Whatever there is, from the Pleiades down to the damp earth, came into being by His command. (Süreyyâ is the Pleiades star cluster; serâ means damp earth. Together they describe everything from the sky to the ground.)

5. (Cim) He brought the world into being when it was not; and the believer affirmed His oneness with the tongue.

6. (Ha) He is the one who gives life to the dead; He is the one who takes the hand of all who are left in distress.

7. (Khe) Whatever you do, good or evil, do it; nothing comes about without His command, even if you strive a thousand times.

8. (Dal) O servant, if you wish to attain good fortune and happiness, be always under the command of that sovereign. (The sovereign here is God.)

9. (Dhal) Whoever opposes His command is abased and despised; whoever follows the lower self (nefs) is in the end left deprived.

10. (Ra) Watch His road, do not go astray; beware, do not become a travelling companion of the devil.

11. (Za) If you wish to find a place in Paradise, take great care to keep far from error.

12. (Sin) Pray for the one who beats you and curses you, so that the Messenger of the Almighty may intercede for you.

13. (Shin) If you wish the Prophet to intercede for you, always be a companion of the knowledge of tawhid (do not depart from belief in God's oneness).

14. (Sad) Did you think the world was lasting? It is transient and in the end will be scattered to pieces.

15. (Dad) At every breath stand against your lower self; let your life not pass in vain in the world.

16. (Ta) If you wish to circle the Kaaba, look down on no poor person, and speak to him kindly.

17. (Za) Do not make injustice a habit; for from beginning to end it will bring you no good.

18. (Ayn) Make tears and blood flow from your eyes; at every breath cry out against your lower self. (The letter's name, "ayn", means "eye" in Arabic; the couplet opens with this letter in the word "‘aynuñdan", "from your eye".)

19. (Ghayn) Wake the eye of the heart from the sleep of heedlessness, so that you may see the face of Paradise without doubt.

20. (Fa) When you set out from this transient world, take care not to come into God's presence with sin.

21. (Qaf) Kill your lower self, and be free of care in peace of heart; whatever anyone says, remain true.

22. (Kaf) Even if you commit sins as great as mountains, if you repent, God will forgive them.

23. (Lam) But do not give up repentance; do not lie down unaware in the sleep of heedlessness.

24. (Mim) I, Mihrî, am a sinful servant with a blackened face; O my God, my hope is at Your door.

25. (Nun) In what tongue shall I express Your praise; You are such a sovereign that every tongue is powerless in praising You.

26. (Waw) Woe to me, for I have not an atom of good; I have no deed worthy of Your presence, and my sins are many.

27. (Ha) O Ever-Living One, O Lord of the worlds, see, I have taken refuge in Your grace alone.

28. (Lamalif) I do not say "no" to my shortcoming, I do not deny my fault; make Your forgiveness an intercessor for my rebellion and my sins. ("Lâ" means "no" in Arabic and has the same sound as the letter lamalif.)

29. (Ya) You created me, O Lord of all creatures; on the day of resurrection I hope for Your mercy.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This poem, the first of the two mesnevis in Mihrî Hatun's divan, has twenty-nine couplets and is written in the remel metre in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The mesnevi is a verse form in which each couplet rhymes within itself; in this poem too each couplet carries its own rhyme: bî-zevâl / ḳîl ü ḳâl, bî-gümân / fân, ‘âlemi / âdemi, and so on. Its heading in the edition is "Der-Tevḥîd-i Bârî ‘Azze ve Cell" (On the oneness of the Creator, mighty and glorious), which in the M and Ü manuscripts appears simply as "Der-Tevḥîd-i Bârî". The poem is found in all four manuscripts (F 22a, M 23b, S 23b, Ü 17b). Although the introduction to Arslan's edition counts the two mesnevis as 70 couplets in total, in the text of the edition this mesnevi has 29 and the second 51. Because it is a tawhid, it was not presented to any particular person; its date of composition is also unknown.

The most striking formal feature of the poem is its sequence of letters. Each couplet begins with a letter of the Arabic alphabet, and at the head of the couplets the edition shows the name of the letter in parentheses: Alif, Be, Te, Se, Cim, Ha, Hı, Dal, Zel, Ra, Ze, Sin, Şın, Sad, Dad, Tı, Zı, Ayn, Gayn, Fe, Kaf, Kef, Lam, Mim, Nun, Vav, He, Lamalif and Ye. The twenty-nine couplets correspond one by one to these twenty-nine letters of the alphabet. In divan literature such poems are called elifname. Lokman Taşkesenlioğlu defines the elifname as a poem in which the first letters of the words at the head of the lines or couplets are arranged in alphabetical order from alif to ye; he notes that these poems can be written in different verse forms such as the mesnevi, kaside, ghazal and murabba, and on religious or non-religious subjects.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The content of the mesnevi advances in three stages. The first seven couplets list the attributes of God: He is eternal and one, He alone is everlasting, He created the universe and man, everything from the sky to the earth came into being by His command, and it is He who gives life to the dead and takes the hand of one in distress. Gülşen Kaya, in saying that God is described in the divan within a Qur'anic framework, summarizes the content of these couplets almost in their order. In the second couplet, taking the verse "Küllü men ‘aleyhâ fân" from the Sura al-Rahman into the line is a quotation (iktibas). After the eighth couplet the poem turns to advice: the reader is counselled not to follow the lower self, not to be a companion of the devil, not to look down on the poor, not to make injustice a habit, and not to give up repentance. The last six couplets are a prayer (münacat) made by the poet in her own name.

Kaya notes that the subject of repentance and asking forgiveness is not mentioned in Mihrî's ghazals and kasides, while in the mesnevi and the Tazarru‘-nâme it is treated as the answer to sin, and she gives the twenty-second couplet ("Even if you commit sins as great as mountains, if you repent, God forgives") as an example. She also explains, again with an example from this poem, that in the twenty-fourth couplet the concept of the dergâh (court, threshold) is used in the sense of God's door. Another feature of this couplet is that the pen name falls on the letter Mim: because the name Mihrî begins with Mim, the poet was able to place the couplet in which she calls herself "‘âṣî" and "rû-siyâh" (sinful, with a blackened face) exactly on this letter.

In some couplets the sequence of letters also joins with the meaning. That the Ayn couplet begins "‘Aynuñdan revân it yaş u ḳan" (make tears and blood flow from your eyes) brings together the name of the letter and the word "‘ayn" meaning eye. The Lamalif couplet opens with the words "Lâ dimezem" (I do not say no); there is a pun between the pronunciation of the letter and the negative particle "lâ". In the tenth couplet the words "râh" (road), "güm-râh" (astray) and "hem-râh" (companion) make a play of sound around the same root. The line "Sen şehüñ medḥinde ‘âciz her lisân" in the twenty-fifth couplet is almost identical to the line "Ol şehüñ medḥinde ‘âcizdür bilürsin her lisân" of the terci‘-i bend in the divan; Mihrî used the same turn of phrase here for God and in the terci‘-i bend for Prince Ahmed.

Taşkesenlioğlu counts Mihrî Hatun, together with Âşık Paşa, Nesîmî, Muhibbî and Fuzûlî, among the important poets who wrote an elifname, and notes that she is among the poets who wrote more than one. Mihrî's other elifname is the love kaside beginning "Elif ey ḳâmeti mevzûn", the seventeenth kaside of the divan. The same arrangement of letters is thus used in the divan in two different poems, one addressed to God and one to the beloved. Taşkesenlioğlu quotes this mesnevi from the text in Sabiha Gemici's 1990 doctoral thesis; in Gemici's text some words differ from Arslan's edition, for example in the fourteenth couplet the reading "Bu fenâdur" of the Ü manuscript instead of "Ber-fenâdur".

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

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