An Attempt to Synthesize Arabic Ilm and Persian Adab in Turkish Literary Milieu: Ahmedi’s Badayi‘ Al-Sihr

Türkçe

Ahmedi is the poet whose ghazals were most imitated in the initial centuries of classical Turkish literature. This illustrates the significant role he played in establishing this poetic tradition. Moreover, Ahmedi is credited with authoring a Persian work titled Badayi‘ al-Sihr fi Sanayi‘ al-Shi‘r, which is expected to offer a comprehensive theory of classical poetry. However, compared to his ghazals, this work has received less attention. The objective of this article is to elucidate this apparent contradiction. To this end, the article initially considers the rationale behind the author's decision to compose the work. It has been established that Ahmedi intended his work to be a book of badi‘, which should be assessed within the context of adab literature. Furthermore, Ahmedi provides further corroboration for this hypothesis by asserting that he was inspired by the Persian poet and prose writer Rashid al-Din Vatvat’s Hada’iq al-Sihr fi Daqa’iq al-Shi‘r. After examining the author's rationale, this article proceeds to a comparative analysis of Badayi‘ al-Sihr with its foundational work, Hada’iq al-Sihr. It was discovered that Ahmedi incorporated many novel figures that were absent in Vatvat's work and modified the definitions and scopes of numerous common figures. Furthermore, it was observed that he extensively employed al-Qazwini’s Talkhis al-Miftah, a textbook of balagha, which belongs to the madrasa ilms (disciplines) and does not align with the categorization of adab literature. This discrepancy between the components of Ahmedi's composition is identified as a principal factor contributing to the lack of interest in his work.