Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Saldı hayrânlıga erbâb-ı dilânı ne ki var
Vahy mi mu‘cize mi sihr mi güftârların

In English

1. Your words have cast into wonder all the people of the heart there are; are (these words) revelation, miracle, or magic?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a single couplet Hüsameddin gives after the preceding kıt‘a with the word "another". The lines end with "ne ki var" and "güftârların" and do not rhyme; the couplet must be one of the couplets of a ghazal other than the matla. Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is an expression of wonder directed at speech and its effect. The three questions in the second line, "revelation, miracle, or magic?", list the extraordinary effect of the words in a rising series; such sequences are common in both Sufi language and rhetoric. To whom the speaker of these words is addressed is not clear: "güftârların" ("your words") may be addressed to the beloved, to the Prophet, or to the poet himself.

Since Hüsameddin gives the couplet immediately after the kıt‘a in which Nigârî calls his own poetry revelation and inspiration, he seems to have read it too as a statement about the effect of the poet's own words; this is an interpretation we draw from Hüsameddin's ordering. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) around the extraordinary power of speech among the words "vahy" (revelation), "mu‘cize" (miracle) and "sihr" (magic), and a link between "hayrân" (in wonder) and "dilân" (hearts).

Historical Context

The couplet is the last poetic quotation in Hüsameddin's entry on Nigârî. Hüsameddin closes his entry after this couplet with these words: Mîr Hamza Nigârî is a venerable and blessed figure; he is one of the learned sheikhs with a Sufi way of his own, and the followers of this way came to be called Hamzavî. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources