Münîrî, Muamma 17: The Name Kemal

Muamma 17 (name riddle) — Büküldi bilüm görmeyeli ḳaşı hilālin

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 07 October 2026 • 3 min reading

Münîrî's last muamma tells of a lover whose waist bends from not seeing the crescent brow of his full-moon beloved; the edition gives its solution as "Kemal".

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Büküldi bilüm görmeyeli ḳaşı hilālin
Şol māh-ı tamāmuñ k’umaram yine viṣālin

In English

1. Since I last saw the crescent brow of that full moon (the full-moon-faced beloved), my waist has bent; that full moon whose union I still hope for.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventeenth and last muamma (name riddle) of the edition is a single couplet in the metre "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün"; the lines rhyme on "hilālin" and "viṣālin". Among the muammas this metre is used only here. The muammas stand in the same order in VT and VY (VT 179b-180b, VY 151a-152b); since Ü breaks off after the 11th muamma, this couplet is absent from that manuscript.

The edition's heading gives the solution as "Kemāl"; Ersoy cites the name in his introduction as "Kemal". Whose name it is is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built on the phases of the moon. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "hilâl" as the bow-shaped form of the moon in the first three days after its birth and records the compound "hilâl-ebrû" (crescent-browed); the entry "mâh" gives the meanings moon and, figuratively, a beloved beautiful as the moon. The beloved is the full moon (māh-ı tamām), her brow the crescent. The lover who does not see her has a bent waist and has himself become a crescent. Between crescent and full moon there is both congruence of images (tenasüp) and antithesis.

The edition does not show the letter calculation of the riddle. The Kubbealtı gives "kemal" the meanings maturity and the state of having reached a complete, flawless degree; the phrase "māh-ı tamām" (complete moon) in the couplet is close in meaning to the name Kemāl in the solution (our observation). We cannot show whether this is a letter operation or only a clue of meaning.