Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

‘Aşkdandur cümle eşyâ innemâ
‘Aşkdandur asl u fer‘-i küllemâ
‘Aşkdandır nûr-ı hûrşîd nûr-ı meh
‘Aşkdandır cümle pertev ve'z-zıyâ
‘Aşkdandır devr-i tayr u es-semek
‘Aşkdandır seyr ü kevkeb ve's-semâ
‘Aşkdandır gerdiş-i hûrşîd ü meh
‘Aşkdandır Kãf-ı sâkin ve's-serâ
‘Aşkdandır gör tecellî yâ nasîb
‘Aşkdandır cûş-ı tâlib ve's-senâ
‘Aşkdandır ey Nigârî her ne var
‘Aşkdandır cümle eşyâ intihâ

In English

1. All things are only from love; the root and the branch of everything are from love.

2. The light of the sun, the light of the moon are from love; all brightness and radiance are from love.

3. The circling of birds and of fish is from love; the course of the stars and the sky is from love.

4. The turning of the sun and the moon is from love; Mount Qaf standing still, and the earth, are from love.

5. See the divine manifestation (tecellî), O you who have your share, it is from love; the fervour of the seeker and praise are from love. (The opening words of the line admit another reading; "yâ nasîb" may be an exclamation meaning "what fortune".)

6. O Nigârî, whatever exists is from love; the end to which all things come is from love.

Literary and Historical Commentary

All twelve lines begin with the same word: "‘Aşkdandır", "it is from love". So insistent an initial repetition (tekrir) is rare in the divan ghazal; the poem moves like an enumeration that applies one doctrinal sentence to a new being each time. What it says is a single idea: the cause and the end of existence are love. The value of the ghazal lies not in proving this idea but in travelling through the universe from end to end and stamping the same seal on every corner of it.

The beings named come in pairs, and the pairs seem deliberately chosen. Sun and moon give light; bird and fish stand for air and water, star and sky for the heights. In the fourth couplet motion meets stillness: the turning of the sun and moon is from love, but so is the standing still of Mount Qaf, believed to encircle the world. Love is thus made the cause of rest as much as of movement. In Sufism the creation of the world is often told as an act of love, linked to the tradition known by the words "I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known". Nigârî does not cite this tradition; yet his first and last couplets hold the two ends of the idea: the root of everything is love, and so is the end of everything.

In its language the ghazal attaches Arabic pieces to a Turkish frame. Arabic words and particles such as "innemâ" (only, truly), "küllemâ" (whatever), "es-semek" (the fish), "ve's-semâ" (and the sky), "ve's-serâ" (and the earth) and "ve's-senâ" (and praise) stand in the rhyme position; the second line of every couplet opens with the Turkish "‘Aşkdandır" and closes on an Arabic word. The long "â" they share is what places the poem among the divan's elif ghazals. The lines are measured in the short form of ramal, "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün", which is how the edition gives the metre.

The pen-name couplet repeats the first couplet almost word for word: "cümle eşyâ" (all things) ends with "innemâ" in the first line and with "intihâ" (the end) in the last. The frame drawn between beginning and end says with its form what the poem says in words.

Bibliography

Online sources