Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Tövbe yâ rabbi hatâ râhına gittiklerime
Bilip ettiklerime bilmeyip ettiklerime

In English

1. O Lord, I repent of the steps I took on the road of error, of what I did knowingly and of what I did unknowingly.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is the only piece that has come down to us from Abdürrahîm-i Rûmî, the Zeyniyye sheikh of Merzifon. Nihat Azamat's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi quotes it, saying that the sheikh became famous for this couplet (beyit); it does not state from which work or miscellany the couplet was taken. It does not appear in the entry in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi. For this reason it is not known whether it is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal (gazel), the first couplet of a hymn, or a couplet composed on its own. Since both lines end in the same sound, it has the form of a matla. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-tiklerime"; the rhyme rests on the "-t" sound in "gittiklerime" and "ettiklerime". The source does not indicate the metre. In our reading the couplet fits the ramal pattern of aruz (quantitative metre) "Fâ'ilâtün (Fe'ilâtün) fe'ilâtün fe'ilâtün fe'ilün". In the second line the final consonant of a word must be joined to the vowel of the next (vasl) in "bilip ettik" and "bilmeyip ettik", and the last syllables of "-lerime" must be lengthened (imale). This observation is ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the couplet is repentance, and the words are addressed entirely to God. The first line imagines error as a road: a person's mistakes are a "road of error" on which he walks, and repentance is the wish to take back, one by one, the steps taken on it. The image of the road is also close to the Sufi idea of sülûk, the spiritual journey. The second line carries the real weight of the couplet, setting two opposite words, "bilip" (knowingly) and "bilmeyip" (unknowingly), side by side and so creating antithesis (tezat). The repetition of the same word "ettiklerime" (what I did) makes the contrast sharper still. The poet includes in a single repentance both the sin committed knowingly and the one committed without awareness. Asking forgiveness for sins committed knowingly or unknowingly is a turn of phrase often found in Turkish prayers of repentance; this familiar wording may have played a part in the couplet's wide currency. This last assessment is our own observation.

The couplet has none of the ornate conventional images of divan poetry. The language is plain and the words close to everyday speech; the only Arabic and Persian elements are the words "tövbe" (repentance), "hatâ" (error) and "râh" (road). This simplicity agrees with what Mecdî Mehmed Efendi said of the sheikh: according to Hüsameddin's quotation, at times when ecstasy overcame him the sheikh would compose Turkish poems under the pen name (mahlas) Rûmî and would "burn and set ablaze" his listeners with these poignant verses.

Historical Context

Şeyh Abdürrahîm received a licence in 832 (1428-29) from Zeynüddin el-Hâfî, founder of the Zeyniyye branch of the Suhrawardiyya, and at his master's command returned to Merzifon, where he devoted himself to guiding disciples. The sources mention a collection of hymns entitled Dîvançe-i İlâhiyyât and a work called Işknâme; the hymns are lost, and no published text of the Işknâme could be found. When and on what occasion the couplet was composed is unknown. For the sheikh's life, his years with Hâfî and the dispute over the date of his death, see the article Rûmî (Şeyh Abdürrahîm-i Merzifonî).

Bibliography

Online sources