Original Persian Text

Metre: Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün (as given in the edition)

Ân çonân dervîş kî sâhib-i ‘âḳil-est
Bihterân dervîş ki dâim ḥaḳ perest

In English

1. That dervish who possesses reason is good; better than him are the dervishes who always worship God.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Persian Couplet

Among the Turkish couplets of the section a Persian one suddenly appears: placed in the middle of the section on the necessity of the pledge to a master, it is given separately in the edition under the heading “Beyit”, couplet. In the book such Persian couplets are now and then set between the Turkish sections of counsel; they are either the poet's own attempts in Persian or couplets circulating in Sufi anthologies. The edition does not give the source of this couplet, so it is not certain whether it belongs to the poet or is a quotation.

The couplet is hard to read. The edition's transcription is “Ân çonân dervîş kî sâhib-i ‘âḳil-est / Bihterân dervîş ki dâim ḥaḳ perest”; the meaning given here rests on reading the word “bihterân” in the second line as “better than him”, a corrupted or shortened form of the expression “bihter ez ân”, and is not certain. On this reading the couplet praises a dervish who possesses reason but gives the real superiority to the dervish who always worships God, that is, who has turned to worship with his whole being.

This comparison accords with the general idea of the section: reason alone is not enough; the traveller needs a state turned towards God and a master who will bring him to that state. The counsel in the section's Turkish couplets, “Sen ṣaḳın nefsiñce etme ictihâd”, beware of reasoning by your own self, completes the meaning of this Persian couplet.

Bibliography

Online sources