Original Persian Text

Metre: Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilün (as given in the edition)

Reft ez-în dünyâ o şeyḫ der-âḫiret
Dâmen-i dûstân dîger vâcib est
Dân be-în dünyâ ticâret-ḫâne est
În ticâret tâ der-i ‘uḳbâ lâzım est

In English

1. That sheikh has gone from this world to the hereafter; one must hold the hem of other friends.

2. Know that this world is a house of trade; this trade is needed up to the door of the hereafter.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Two Persian Couplets

The counsel of the Turkish section is said again in two Persian couplets, this time in another language. The edition gives them under the heading “Beyit” after the section devoted to the traveller whose sheikh has died. The measure is the three-foot remel, the metre of the book's mesnevî sections; the rhyme is “âḫiret / vâcib est” in the first couplet and “ḫâne est / lâzım est” in the second, and the Persian ending “est”, is, closes every line like a refrain.

The first couplet is a plain verdict: when the sheikh has departed from the world, one must hold “dâmen-i dûstân-ı dîger”, the hem of other friends. These “friends” are the friends of God, that is, living saints and the sheikh's deputies; it is the Persian counterpart of the counsel in the Turkish section, “pledge yourself to the most perfect deputy”. The second couplet sees the world as a “ticâret-ḫâne”, a house of trade; this trade lasts until the door of the hereafter. The comparison rests on a Sufi view that regards the traveller's life as a capital to be turned to profit for the hereafter.

Where the couplets come from is not shown: they may be the poet's own words or taken from an anthology. Nor is a meaning supplied for the Persian; the rendering here rests on the transcription alone, and the reading of some words is open to discussion.

Bibliography

Online sources