Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Âl-i Muhammede buğz-ı ‘adâvet
Evlâd-ı Süfyânın şekâvetidir
Nesl-i Muhammedi sevmek istemek
Hakkın bize başka kerametidir
Sülâle-i tâhireye cân virmek
Mîr Nigârî'nin siyâdetidir

In English

1. To bear hatred and enmity towards the family of Muhammad is the wretchedness of the descendants of Abu Sufyan.

2. To wish to love the progeny of Muhammad is a special grace of God to us.

3. To give one's life for the pure lineage is what Mîr Nigârî's descent from the Prophet requires.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These are six lines taken from a poem in syllabic metre (hece); the lines have eleven syllables. Çınar gives the piece as three couplets. The second line of each couplet ends with "şekâvetidir, kerametidir, siyâdetidir"; the refrain is "-idir" ("is") and the rhyme the sound "-et". The first lines are unrhymed. This arrangement suggests that the couplets were taken from the quatrains of a longer poem in syllabic metre; the whole poem and its form are not given in the article. In the last line the poet's pen name appears as "Mîr Nigârî".

The text is taken from Fatih Çınar's 2019 article introducing a treatise written at Nigârî's request; Çınar quotes the poems from A. Azmi Bilgin's edition of the divan. Çınar cites the piece from page 172 of the divan.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The piece voices, in a plain syllabic utterance, love for the Ehl-i Beyt (the Prophet's household), one of the most prominent themes of Nigârî's poetry. "Âl-i Muhammed" and "nesl-i Muhammed" are the family and progeny of the Prophet; "sülâle-i tâhire" (the pure lineage) is used in the same sense. The poet regards bearing hatred towards this lineage as a wretchedness peculiar to the "evlâd-ı Süfyân", the descendants of Abu Sufyan, ancestor of the Umayyad dynasty that fought against the Prophet's household; loving them he sees as a grace from God.

The last couplet ties the subject to the poet himself: giving one's life for the Prophet's household is what Mîr Nigârî's "siyâdet", his status as a seyyid (descendant of the Prophet), requires. Nigârî came from a seyyid family tracing its descent to Hasan; the details of this genealogy were also discussed by Hüsameddin. In each of the three couplets a contrast or gradation is drawn: enmity and wretchedness, love and grace, self-sacrifice and noble descent. "Şekâvet" (wretchedness) and "keramet" (grace) are words describing two opposite spiritual states, placed side by side in the rhyme.

Historical Context

Çınar regards love for the Ehl-i Beyt as the third cornerstone of Nigârî's Sufi thought, and writes that he accepted this love as a grace of God, and the cursing of the wrongs done to the Prophet's household and of those who did them as a sign of love for the Prophet. This subject was also at the centre of the disputes Nigârî had in Amasya; Hüsameddin relates that in his sermons and poems he spoke harshly of those who had wronged the Prophet's household, and that this led to a deep division in the town. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Çınar, "Nakşî-Hâlidî Şeyhi Hamza Nigarî'nin İsteğiyle Yazılan Bir Ehl-i Beyti Müdafaa Risalesi: Risâle fî Ta'n li-men Hâlefe Ali Radıyallahu Teâlâ Anh", Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, VII/1, 2019, pp. 125-150; the poem on p. 131. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/803338

Online sources