From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the administrative region of Azerbaijan, see Fizuli Rayon; for the
city in Azerbaijan, see Füzuli.
| Muhammad bin Suleyman |

Artistic rendition of Fuzûlî |
| Born |
1483 (approximate)
Karbala, Akkoyunlu, now Iraq |
| Died |
1556
Karbala, Safavid Empire, now Iraq |
| Writing period |
16th century |
| Genres |
Romantic Azerbaijani Epic Poetry, Wisdom
Literature |
| Notable work(s) |
The Epic of Layla and Majnun(Dâstân-ı Leylî vü
Mecnûn) |
Fużūlī (فضولی) (or Fuduli, Azerbaijani: Füzuli) was the pen name of the Azerbaijani poet,[1] writer
and thinker Muhammad bin Suleyman (محمد بن سليمان) (c. 1483 –
1556). Often considered one of the greatest contributors to the Dîvân tradition
of Azerbaijani literature,[2] Fuzûlî
in fact wrote his collected poems (dîvân) in three different languages: Azerbaijani Turkic, Persian, and
Arabic.
Although his Turkish works are written in Azerbaijani, he was
well-versed in both the Ottoman and the Chagatai
Turkic literary traditions as well. He was also well versed in mathematics and astronomy[3
].
Life
Fuzûlî is generally believed to have been born around 1483 in
what is now Iraq, when the area
was under Ak Koyunlu
Turkmen rule; he was
probably born in either Karbalā’ or an-Najaf.[3
] He is believed to belong to Bayat tribe, one of the Turkic Oghuz tribes who were related to
the Ottoman Kayı clan and were scattered throughout the
Middle East, Anatolia, and the Caucasus at the time. Though
Fuzûlî's ancestors had been of nomadic origin, the family had long since settled
in towns.
Fuzûlî appears to have received a good education, first under
his father—who was a mufti in
the city of Al
Hillah—and then under a teacher named Rahmetullah.[4] It was
during this time that he learned the Persian and Arabic languages
in addition to his native Azerbaijani. Fuzûlî showed poetic promise
early in life, composing sometime around his twentieth year the
important mesnevî entitled Beng ü
Bâde (بنگ و باده; "Hashish and Wine"), in which he compared
the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II to hashish and the Safavid shah Ismail I to wine, much to the advantage of the latter.
One of the few things that is known of Fuzûlî's life during this
time is how he arrived at his pen name. In the introduction to his
collected Persian poems, he says: "In the early days when I was
just beginning to write poetry, every few days I would set my heart
on a particular pen name and then after a time change it for
another because someone showed up who shared the same name".[5]
Eventually, he decided upon the Arabic word fuzûlî—which
literally means "impertinent, improper, unnecessary"—because he
"knew that this title would not be acceptable to anyone else".[6] Despite
the name's pejorative meaning, however, it contains a double meaning—what is called
tevriyye (توريه) in Ottoman
Divan poetry—as Fuzûlî himself explains: "I was possessed of
all the arts and sciences and found a pen name that also implies
this sense since in the dictionary fuzûl (ﻓﻀﻮل) is given
as a plural of fazl (ﻓﻀﻞ; 'learning') and has the same rhythm as
‘ulûm (ﻋﻠﻮم; 'sciences') and fünûn (ﻓﻨﻮن;
'arts')".[7]
In 1534, the Ottoman sultan Süleymân I conquered the
region of Baghdad, where Fuzûlî
lived, from the Safavid Empire. Fuzûlî now had the chance to become
a court poet under the Ottoman patronage system, and he composed a number of
kasîdes, or panegyric poems, in praise
of the sultan and members of his retinue, and as a result, he was granted a
stipend. However, owing to the complexities of the Ottoman bureaucracy, this
stipend never materialized. In one of his best-known works, the
letter Şikâyetnâme (شکايت نامه; "Complaint"), Fuzûlî spoke
out against such bureaucracy and its attendant corruption:
- سلام وردم رشوت دگلدر ديو آلمادىلر
- Selâm verdim rüşvet değildir deyü almadılar.[8]
- I said hello, but they didn't accept as it wasn't a bribe.
Though his poetry flourished during his time among the Ottomans,
the loss of his stipend meant that, materially speaking, Fuzûlî
never became secure. In fact, most of his life was spent attending
upon the Shi`ite Tomb of `Alî in the city of an-Najaf,
south of Baghdad.[9] He died
during a plague outbreak in 1556, in Karbalā’,
either of the plague itself or of cholera.
Works
Fuzuli
(1494-1556), Azerbaijani poet and thinker. Monument in
Baku
Fuzûlî has always been known, first and foremost, as a poet of
love. It was, in fact, a
characterization that he seems to have agreed with:
- مندن فضولی ايستمه اشعار مدح و ذم
- من عاشقام هميشه سوزم عاشقانه در
- Menden Fuzûlî isteme eş'âr-ı medh ü zem
- Men âşıkam hemîşe sözüm âşıkânedür[10]
- Don't ask Fuzûlî for poems of praise or rebuke
- I am a lover and speak only of love
Fuzûlî's notion of love, however, has more in common with the Sufi idea of love as a projection
of the essence of God—though
Fuzûlî himself seems to have belonged to no particular Sufi order—than it does with
the Western
idea of romantic love. This can be seen in the
following lines from another poem:
- عاشق ايمش هر ن وار ﻋﺎﻝﻢ
- ﻋلم بر قيل و قال ايمش آنجق
- ‘Aşk imiş her ne var ‘âlem
- ‘İlm bir kîl ü kâl imiş ancak[11]
- All that is in the world is love
- And knowledge is nothing but gossip
The first of these lines, especially, relates to the idea of
wahdat al-wujūd (وحدة الوجود), or
"unity of being", which was first formulated by Ibn al-‘Arabī and which
states that nothing apart from various manifestations of God
exists. Here, Fuzûlî uses the word "love" (عاشق ‘aşk)
rather than God in the formula, but the effect is the same.
In Fuzûlî's œuvre, his most extended treatment of this
idea of love is in the long poem Dâstân-ı Leylî vü Mecnun
(داستان ليلى و مجنون), a mesnevî which takes as its
subject the classical Middle Eastern love story of Layla and
Majnun. In his version of the story, Fuzûlî concentrates upon
the pain of the mad lover Majnun's separation from his beloved
Layla, and comes to see this pain as being of the essence of
love:
- یا رب بلا عاشق ايله قيل آشنا منى
- بر دم بلا عاشقدن ايتمه جدا منى
- آز ايلمه عنایتونى اهل دردن
- يعنى كه چوح بلالره قيل مبتلا منى
- Yâ Rab belâ-yı ‘aşk ile kıl âşinâ meni
- Bir dem belâ-yı ‘aşkdan etme cüdâ meni
- Az eyleme ‘inâyetüni ehl-i derdden
- Ya‘ni ki çoh belâlara kıl mübtelâ meni[12]
- Oh God, let me know the pain of love
- Do not for even a moment separate me from it
- Do not lessen your aid to the afflicted
- But rather, make lovesick me one among them
The ultimate value of the suffering of love, in Fuzûlî's work,
lies in that it helps one to approach closer to "the Real"
(al-Haqq الحق), which is one of the 99 names of God in Islamic tradition.
Selected
bibliography
A page from the collected poems of Fuzûlî
Works in
Turkish
- Dîvân ("Collected Poems")
- Beng ü Bâde (بنگ و باده; "Hashish and Wine")
- Hadîkat üs-Süedâ (حديقت السعداء; "Garden of
Pleasures")
- Dâstân-ı Leylî vü Mecnûn (داستان ليلى و مجنون; "The
Epic of Layla and Majnun")
- Risâle-i Muammeyât (رسال ﻤﻌﻤيات; "Treatise on
Riddles")
- Şikâyetnâme (شکايت نامه; "Complaint")
Works in
Persian
- Dîvân ("Collected Poems")
- Anîs ol-qalb (انیس القلب; "Friend of the Heart")
- Haft Jâm (هفت جام; "Seven Goblets")
- Rend va Zâhed (رند و زاهد; "Hedonist and
Ascetic")
- Resâle-e Muammeyât (رسال ﻤﻌﻤيات; "Treatise on
Riddles")
- Sehhat o Ma'ruz (صحت و معروض; "Health and
Sickness")
Works in
Arabic
- Dîvân ("Collected Poems")
- Matla' ul-İ'tiqâd (مطلع الاﻋﺘﻘﺎد; "The Birth of
Faith")
Legacy
According to the Encyclopedia Iranica:
|
“ |
Fuzuli is credited with
some fifteen works in Arabic, Persian, and Azerbaijani, both in
verse and prose. Although his greatest significance is undoubtedly
as a Turkish poet, he is also of importance to Persian literature
thanks to his original works in that language (indeed, Persian was
the language he preferred for his Shi'ite religious poetry); his
Turkic adaptations or translations of Persian works; and the
inspiration he derived from Persian models for his Turkic works.
... The fundamental gesture of Fozuli's poetry is inclusiveness.
It links Azeri, Turkmen and Ottoman (Rumi) poetry, east and west;
it also bridges the religious divide between Shiism and Sunnism.
Generations of Ottoman poets admired and wrote responses to his
poetry; no contemporary canon can bypass him.
|
” |
Honours
In 1959, the Atown and the associated rayon in Azerbaijan were renamed after him.[13]
References
Primary
- Fuzulî. Fuzulî Divanı: Gazel, Musammat, Mukatta' ve Ruba'î
kısmı. Ed. Ali Nihad Tarlan. İstanbul: Üçler Basımevi,
1950.
- Fuzulî. Leylâ ve Mecnun. Ed. Muhammet Nur Doğan. ISBN
975-08-0198-9.
Secondary
- Andrews, Walter G. "Fuzûlî" in Ottoman Lyric Poetry: An
Anthology. pp. 235–237. ISBN 0-292-70472-0.
- "Fozule, Mohammad b.
Solayman". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 25 August 2006.
- "Fuzuli, Mehmed bin Süleyman." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006.
Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 23 Aug. 2006 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9035730>.
- Kudret, Cevdet. Fuzuli. ISBN 9751020166.
- Şentürk, Ahmet Atillâ. "Fuzûlî" in Osmanlı Şiiri
Antolojisi. pp. 280–324. ISBN 975-08-0163-6.
Notes
External
links
- Muhammed Fuzuli—a website
with a brief biography and translated selections from Leyla and
Mecnun
- FUZULİ
- Fuzûlî in Stanford J.
Shaw's History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern
Turkey
| Persian literature |
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Classical |
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900s–1000s
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1000s–1100s
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1100s–1200s
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1200s–1300s
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1300s–1400s
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1400s–1500s
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Ubayd
Zakani · Salman
Sawaji · Jāmī · Kamal
Khujandi · Ahli Shirzi
(1454–1535) · Fuzûlî
(1483–1556) · Baba Faghani Shirzani
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1500s–1600s
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1600s–1700s
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1700s–1800s
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Neshat
Esfahani · Forughi Bistami
(1798–1857) · Mahmud Saba Kashani
(1813–1893)
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| Contemporary Persian and Classical Persian are the same
language, but writers since 1900 are classified as contemporary. At
one time, Persian was a common cultural language of much of the
non-Arabic Islamic world. Today it is the official language of Iran, Tajikistan and one of the two official
languages of Afghanistan. |
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