Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün

Bir muḳaddes ḫâne-i feyż-i Ḫudâ’dır ḳalb-i şeyḫ
Maḥzen-i esrâr-ı ẕât-ı kibriyâdır ḳalb-i şeyḫ
Bir tehî vîrâne ṣanma sen anı ẕâhid saḳın
Bir mükemmel ḫân-ḳāh-ı Muṣṭafâ’dır ḳalb-i şeyḫ
Mekteb-i vaḥdetde gel ‘ilm-i ledündür dersinden al
Her ma‘ârifde mu‘allim âşinâdır ḳalb-i şeyḫ
Kendi taṣvîriñdir ol âyinede seyr etdiğiñ
Öyle mir’âtı mücellâ pür żiyâdır ḳalb-i şeyḫ
Bilmiş ol Mir’ât-nümâ’yı Ḥaḳ için bir ṭoġru söz
Ṭâlibân-ı Ḥaḳḳ’a ancaḳ müḳteżâdır ḳalb-i şeyḫ

In English

1. The sheikh's heart is a holy house of the grace of God; the sheikh's heart is the treasury of the secrets of the essence of the Majestic.

2. O ascetic, beware of thinking it an empty ruin; the sheikh's heart is a perfect lodge of Mustafa.

3. Come, take the lesson of the knowledge from God's presence in the school of oneness; the sheikh's heart is a familiar teacher in every gnosis.

4. What you behold in that mirror is your own image; the sheikh's heart is such a polished mirror, full of light.

5. Know Mir'ât-nümâ as one who speaks a true word for God's sake: for the seekers of God only the sheikh's heart is what is needed.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Sheikh's Heart

Each couplet gives the heart a new name: holy house of the grace of God, treasury of secrets, lodge of the Prophet, teacher in the school of oneness, polished mirror. Set after the section on rabıta, the five-couplet ghazal thus defines the place towards which rabıta is directed, the sheikh's heart. The refrain “ḳalb-i şeyḫ”, the sheikh's heart, brings every couplet back to that definition; the metre is “Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün”.

In the second couplet the poet tells the ascetic not to think the sheikh's heart a “tehî vîrâne”, an empty ruin; this recalls from the opposite direction the image of the “kûşe-i vîrâne”, the corner among the ruins chosen by the dervishes in the book's first ghazal. Few places in the book state the mirror idea as plainly as the fourth couplet: what the disciple sees in the sheikh's heart is his own image. The disciple who looks upon the sheikh's form in rabıta in fact sees himself, his own state, in that polished mirror. The pen name “Mir'ât-nümâ”, the one who shows the mirror, read together with this couplet, almost becomes a definition.

“A true word for God's sake” is what the poet claims to speak in the last couplet, and there he also says that what the seekers of God need is the sheikh's heart. The flow of the rhymes, “Ḫudâ, kibriyâ, Muṣṭafâ, âşinâ, żiyâ, müḳteżâ”, shows that the ghazal is less a eulogy than a list of definitions.

Bibliography

Online sources