Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün

Ṭâlib-i Ḥaḳ Haḳḳ’a ‘arż iḥtiyâc etmek gerek
Feyż-i Ḥaḳḳ’ı dilde dâ’im indirâc etmek gerek
Meslek-i faḳrı ḳabûl etmeksizin olmaz velî
Şâh-ı Edhem gibi terk-i taḥt u tâc etmek gerek
“Festaḳım” sırrında ġāfil olma ey ṭâlib ṣaḳın
İstiḳāmet ‘âleminde imtizâc etmek gerek
Etme pinhân ‘illetiñ ‘arż et ṭabîb-i ḥâziḳa
Ol ṭabîb-i ḥâziḳ bu derde bir ‘ilâc etmek gerek
‘İlm-i ḥikmetdir sen isterseñ eger Mir’at-nümâ
Çoḳ riyâżet üzre baṭnıñ pekçe aç etmek gerek

In English

1. The seeker of God must lay his need before God; he must always let the grace of God settle in his heart.

2. No one becomes a saint without accepting the path of poverty; one must give up throne and crown like Shah Edhem.

3. O seeker, beware of being heedless of the secret of “Festaḳım” (Be upright); one must blend into the world of uprightness.

4. Do not hide your illness, show it to a skilled physician; that skilled physician must make a cure for this ailment.

5. Mir'ât-nümâ, if you want the knowledge of wisdom, you must keep your belly well hungry through much austerity.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Five Counsels with the Refrain “Gerek”

Five couplets, five counsels: in this ghazal in the metre Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün, placed after the section on wavering seekers, each couplet gives a single counsel, and the rhyme words before the refrain “etmek gerek”, one must, are their keys: “iḥtiyâc, indirâc, tâc, imtizâc, ‘ilâc, aç”. To lay one's need before God alone, to accept poverty, to stand firm in uprightness, to show one's illness to the master and to stay hungry through austerity.

The second couplet uses one of the best-loved examples of Sufi literature: İbrâhim b. Edhem, ruler of Balkh, leaving his throne and crown to become a dervish. The expression “Şâh-ı Edhem” names him by his royal title and stresses the greatness of his renunciation. The “Festaḳım” of the third couplet is the beginning of the verse of the chapter Hûd, “Be upright as you have been commanded”, and the couplet also figures among the edition's Qur'anic quotations. The essence of the book's section on uprightness is here fitted into a single line.

In the fourth couplet the master is imagined as a “ṭabîb-i ḥâziḳ”, a skilled physician; the disciple must not hide his fault but show it to the physician. The pen-name couplet, which counts austerity, eating little to train the self, as a condition of the knowledge of wisdom, is Şensöz's chosen example of the notion of austerity in the work.

Bibliography

Online sources