Poetry
Nesîmî's collected poems, or dîvân, number about 300, and include ghazals, qasidas (“lyrics”), and rubâ'îs (“quatrains”) in Azerbaijani Turkic, Persian, and Arabic. His Turkish Divan is considered his most important work, contains 250–300 ghazals and more than 150 rubâ'îs. A large body of Bektashi and Alevi poetry is also attributed to Nesîmî, largely as a result of Hurûfî ideas' influence upon those two groups. Shah Ismail I, the founder of Safavid dynasty in Iran, who himself composed a divan in Azerbaijani Turkic under the pen name of Khatai, praised Nesimi in his poems
According to the Encyclopedia of Islam:
His work consists of two collections of poems, one of which, the rarer, is in Persian and the other in Turkish. The Turkish Dīwān consists of 250-300 ghazels and about 150 quatrains, but the existing mss. differ considerably from the printed edition (Istanbul 1298/1881). No scholarly edition has so far been undertaken, but a study of his vocabulary is given by Jahangir Gahramanov, Nasimi divanynyn leksikasy, Baku 1970. The Persian Dīwān has been edited by Muhammad Rizā Mar'ashī, Khurshid-i Darband . Dīwān-i Imād Dīn Nasīmī, Tehran 1370 Sh./1991.One of Nesîmî's most famous poems is the gazel beginning with the following lines:
- منده صغار ايكى جهان من بو جهانه صغمازام
- گوهر لامکان منم كون و مکانه صغمازام
- Məndə sığar iki cahan, mən bu cahâna sığmazam
- Gövhər-i lâ-məkân mənəm, kövn ü məkâna sığmazam
- Both worlds can fit within me, but in this world I cannot fit
- I am the placeless essence, but into existence I cannot fit
The poem serves as an excellent example of Nesîmî's poetic brand of Hurufism in its mystical form. There is a contrast made between the physical and the spiritual worlds, which are seen to be ultimately united in the human being. As such, the human being is seen to partake of the same spiritual essence as God: the phrase lâ-mekân (لامکان), or "the placeless", in the second line is a Sufi term used for God. The same term, however, can be taken literally as meaning "without a place", and so Nesîmî is also using the term to refer to human physicality. In his poem, Nesîmî stresses that understanding God is ultimately not possible in this world, though it is nonetheless the duty of human beings to strive for such an understanding. Moreover, as the poem's constant play with the ideas of the physical and the spiritual underlines, Nesîmî calls for this search for understanding to be carried out by people within their own selves. This couplet has been described in different pictures, movies, poems, and other pieces of arts.
Some of Nesîmî's work is also more specifically Hurûfî in nature, as can be seen in the following quatrain from a long poem:
- اوزكى مندن نهان ايتمك ديلرسه ڭ ايتمه غل
- گوزلرم ياشڭ روان ايتمك ديلرسه ڭ ايتمه غل
- برك نسرین اوزره مسکين زلفكى سن طاغدوب
- عاشقى بى خانمان ايتمك ديلرسه ڭ ايتمه غل
- Üzünü məndən nihân etmək dilərsən, etməgil
- Gözlərim yaşın reəvân etmək dilərsen, etməgil
- Bərq-i nəsrin üzrə miskin zülfünü sən dağıdıb
- Âşiqi bîxânimân etmək dilərsən, etməgil
- Seeing that moon I rejoiced
- I made of my eyes a cup for its wine
- I went on Hajj in pilgrim's garb
- I called Fâ, Zâd, and Lâm by the name "Truth"
In the quatrain's last line, "Fâ", "Zâd", and "Lâm" are the names of the Arabic letters that together spell out the first name of the founder of Hurufism, Fazl-ullah. As such, Nesîmî is praising his shaykh, or spiritual teacher, and in fact comparing him to God, who is also given the name "Truth" (al-Haqq). Moreover, using the Perso-Arabic letters in the poem in such a manner is a direct manifestation of Hurûfî beliefs insofar as the group expounds a vast and complex letter symbolism in which each letter represents an aspect of the human character, and all the letters together can be seen to represent God.
Nesîmî is also considered a superb love poet, and his poems express the idea of love on both the personal and the spiritual plane. Many of his gazels, for instance, have a high level of emotiveness, as well as expressing a great mastery of language:
- اوزكى مندن نهان ايتمك ديلرسه ڭ ايتمه غل
- گوزلرم ياشڭ روان ايتمك ديلرسه ڭ ايتمه غل
- برك نسرین اوزره مسکين زلفكى سن طاغدوب
- عاشقى بى خانمان ايتمك ديلرسه ڭ ايتمه غل
- Üzünü menden nihân etmek dilersen, etmegil
- Gözlerim yaşın revân etmek dilersen, etmegil
- Berq-i nesrin üzre miskin zülfünü sen dağıdıb
- Âşiqi bîxânimân etmek dilersen, etmegil
- Should you want to veil your face from me, oh please do not!
- Should you want to make my tears flow, oh please do not!
- Should you want to lay your hair of musk atop the rose
- And leave your lover destitute, oh please do not!
Read more about this topic: Imadaddin Nasimi
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.”
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“Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, “Wolf, wolf,” and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been born—the tall story had been born in the tall grass.”
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