Original Ottoman Turkish Text

‘Aşkda bî-meselem vâhid-i bî-tâyem men
Bana mânend bulunmaz kime hem-tâyem men
Vahdete sıgmaz ene'l-Hak sözini söylemezem
Rabbi ernî dimezem matlab-ı Mûsâyam men

In English

1. In love I am without likeness, a single one without equal; none like me is to be found, to whom should I be a match?

2. The word "Ene'l-Hak" (I am the Truth) does not fit within unity, I do not say it; I do not say "Rabbi erinî" (My Lord, show Yourself to me), I am the very object Moses sought.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These are two couplets Hüsameddin quotes as "these couplets". Both lines of the first couplet end with the sound "-âyem men": "bî-tâyem men / hem-tâyem men"; the second couplet is tied to the same rhyme by "Mûsâyam men". Accordingly the piece is the matla and one further couplet of a ghazal; the redif (refrain word) is "men" ("I"), and the rhyme is the sound "-âyem / -âyam". Forms such as "men" and "dimezem, söylemezem" ("I do not say") are peculiar to Azerbaijani Turkish. The rest of the ghazal is unknown; Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplets are an example of what Sufism calls "şath" (ecstatic utterance): words spoken in a state of rapture that appear immoderate from outside. In the first couplet the poet says he is without equal in love; the words "bî-misl" (without likeness), "vâhid" (single) and "bî-tâ" (without peer) gather round the same meaning and multiply the claim. The second couplet rests on allusions to two great examples. "Ene'l-Hak" (I am the Truth) is the saying of Hallâc-ı Mansûr (al-Hallaj), executed for it, and in Sufi poetry the best-known expression of the experience of unity. "Rabbi erinî" is Moses' plea to God in the Qur'an, "My Lord, show Yourself to me, that I may look upon You" (al-A'raf 7:143). The poet rejects both: unity does not fit even within the saying "Ene'l-Hak", and he himself does not ask to see, for he is the very object Moses sought.

In this utterance there is a series of refusals built on the repetition of "söylemezem" and "dimezem" ("I do not say"), iştikak (words from the same root) between "vahdet" (unity) and "vâhid" (single), and a chain of allusions linking al-Hallaj and Moses. At first reading the couplet means that the poet sees himself above all Sufis; in a Sufi reading, however, the word "I" may be taken as the voice not of the person's own self but of the truth manifest in him in the experience of unity. This second reading is ours.

Historical Context

Hüsameddin regards Nigârî as "the unique one of the age" in the science of Sufism, but says he also had his "şatahât-ı sûfiyye" (Sufi ecstatic utterances), and illustrates his Sufi boasting with these couplets. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi likewise writes that Nigârî claimed to hold the rank of the pole (kutbiyet) and said he was peerless in love. The couplets show another dimension of the disputes Nigârî had with the scholars of Amasya: the way he positioned himself. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources