Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün
Ey ẕāt-ı pāki mefḫar olan kā’inātda
V’ey ḥükm-i şer‘ī dā’ir olan şeş-cihātda
Sensin o tāze ġonca gül-i bī-ḫazān kim
Olduñ şigüfte gülşen-i tevḥīd-i ẕātda
Sensin o māh-ı leyle-i isrā-yı ḳurb kim
Seyyārelerde nūr-ı ruḫuñ s̱ābitātda
Sensin ḫamīr-i māye-i īcād-ı kā’ināt
Sen olmasañ ḳalurdı dü-‘ālem fevātda
Terk itdigüñçün oldı bu dünyā fenā-peẕīr
Meyl itdigüñçün oldı o ‘ālem s̱ebātda
Sāyeñ cihāna māye-i ẓıll-ı ilāhdur
Her çend mümteni‘se de bu mümkinātda
İtdi seni hezār taḥiyyāt ile Ḫudā
Şāyān-ı feyż-i luṭfı selām u ṣalātda
Ey dest-gīr-i ümmet-i bī-dest ü pāy-ı cirm
V’ey reh-nümā serā’ir-i ẕāt u ṣıfātda
Ṣāḥib ḳuluñ şefā‘at ider senden irticā
Şermende ḳoyma anı meyān-ı ‘uṣātda
In English
1. O you whose pure essence is the pride of creation, O you whose religious law reaches the six directions (the whole world)!
2. You are the fresh bud of the rose that knows no autumn, who blossomed in the rose garden of the oneness of the divine essence.
3. You are the moon of the night of the Night Journey of nearness, the light of whose face is in the planets and in the fixed stars.
4. You are the dough of the leaven from which creation was made; were it not for you, the two worlds would have remained in nothingness.
5. Because you abandoned it, this world became subject to passing away; because you inclined to it, that world (the hereafter) gained permanence.
6. Your shadow is the leaven of God's shadow upon the world, even though (your shadow) is impossible in this world of contingent beings.
7. God, with a thousand greetings, made you worthy of the bounty of His grace in blessings and peace.
8. O you who take the hand of the community left without hand or foot by guilt, O guide in the secrets of the essence and the attributes!
9. Your servant Sâhib hopes for intercession from you; do not leave him put to shame among the rebellious.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The sixth couplet carries the subtlest thought of this short na‘t. The Prophet's shadow is the leaven of the world's having "ẓıll-ı ilāh", the shadow of God; yet the poet at once adds that in the world of contingent beings this shadow is "mümteni‘", impossible. In the na‘t that comes just before this one in the divan, the tradition that the Prophet's body cast no shadow had been worked into the poem; here the same tradition is set up as a contradiction and resolved: he has no visible shadow, yet he is the source of every divine shadow that falls on the world. If one remembers that "ẓıll-ı ilāh" was also a title used for sultans, the couplet may be hinting at whom true sovereignty belongs to; the text does not say this openly.
The fourth couplet rests on the holy hadith "levlâke", which states that creation was made for the Prophet's sake; Topal quotes the couplet when discussing the divan's religious outlook because it points to the saying "Were it not for you, I would not have created the heavens". The third couplet turns to the night of the Ascension (Mi‘rac), the moment of the Prophet's greatest nearness to God: the light of that night's moon has spread both to the planets (seyyâreler) and to the fixed stars (sâbitât). Naming the moving and the fixed stars together joins antithesis (tezat) with congruence of images (tenasüp). In the fifth couplet the same opposition is set between this world and the next: the world the Prophet abandoned is transient, the realm he turned to is lasting.
The kaside (qasida) of nine couplets rhymes on the sound group "-ātda" (kā’inātda, şeş-cihātda, ẕātda, s̱ābitātda…) and is written in the "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün" pattern of aruz (quantitative metre). "Bī-dest ü pāy" in the eighth couplet describes a community left without hand or foot under the weight of guilt; set beside the word "dest-gīr" (one who takes the hand), the image of the hand binds the couplet from end to end. Topal cites this couplet as an example of the places in the kasides where compound phrases lengthen and the language grows ornate. In the pen-name couplet the request, as in the previous na‘t, is for intercession; this time Sâhib imagines himself not on the field of questioning but ashamed in the midst of a crowd of the rebellious.
Bibliography
- Meral Topal, Pîrî-zâde Mehmed Sâhib Hayatı, Edebî Kişiliği, Eserleri ve Divanı'nın Tenkitli Metni, MA thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2004, pp. 50-51, kaside 3 "Na‘t-ı Şerîf-i Nebevî" (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 3a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 1b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 1b); also p. 5 (couplet 8) and p. 13 (couplets 3 and 4). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
