Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Felek ser-geşte-i zülf-i mutarrâ-yı Muhammeddir
Kamer hûrşîd-i Mecnûndur vü Leylâ-yı Muhammeddir

In English

1. The heavens are the dizzied lover of the fresh and fragrant tresses of Muhammad; and the Moon is the sun of Mecnun and the Leylâ of Muhammad. (The second line can also be understood in other ways; see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a single couplet that appears to be the matla of a naat (poem in praise of the Prophet). Both lines end with the sounds "-â-yı Muhammeddir": the refrain is "Muhammeddir" ("is Muhammad's"), and the rhyme is the "-â" in "mutarrâ / Leylâ". Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is a naat utterance describing the beauty of the Prophet through the conceits of love. In the first line the sky, the heavens (felek), are imagined as a lover dizzied with infatuation for the Prophet's tresses; the turning of the heavens is linked through the word "ser-geşte" (dizzy, bewildered) to the lover's bewilderment. This is the figure of hüsn-i ta‘lil, giving a poetic cause to a real fact: the heavens turn because they are in love with those tresses.

The second line rests on Leylâ and Mecnun, the well-known love story of Arabic literature. If we read the line as "the Moon is the sun of Mecnun and the Leylâ of Muhammad", the Moon becomes both the light that recalls Leylâ in Mecnun's night sky and a Leylâ in love with the Prophet. It is also possible to understand the construction "hûrşîd-i Mecnûn" as "the Mecnun of the sun", that is, one infatuated with the sun; on this reading the Moon is a Mecnun who takes light from the sun and loves it. Which reading is intended is not clear, and both readings are ours. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) of the sky among "felek" (heavens), "kamer" (moon) and "hûrşîd" (sun), and of the story between "Mecnûn" and "Leylâ". Describing the Prophet's beauty in the language of a beloved's beauty accords with the assessment of the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi that in his naats Nigârî turned to innovation in form, conceit and address.

Historical Context

Hüsameddin writes that Nigârî's divan contains fine naats (poems in praise of the Prophet), lofty ghazals and kıt‘as voicing burning, inward griefs, but that among them there are also poetic flaws and literary oddities that do not conform to the rules of the language, which should be counted as expressions peculiar to the poet; he then lists nine pieces in a row, introducing them with "for example". He does not distinguish which couplet is given as an example of beauty and which of a flaw. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources