THE VARIETY OF MEANINGS AND GENDER OF “MAHBÛB” IN MASNAVIS

Abstract

It is seen that the word mahbup, which basically means loved and beloved, has been subject to a narrowing of meaning for a while, and it has been tried to be conceptualized or even used as a term with the meanings of boy lover and boyfriend lover. This approach handles and gives meaning to the word mahbup in the same way in Ottoman literature texts. In order to understand how much this situation corresponds to the texts of Ottoman literature, first of all, it is necessary to make a search on masnavis. Because it is mostly possible to determine the meanings of the word mahbup in masnavi and the gender of the people who have been named or described with it. Here, it would be more appropriate to follow a path from the obvious to the ambiguous, from the known to the obscure. In the light of the data obtained, looking at the use of the word in other divan literature texts will provide better results. In addition, the understanding of love in Ottoman poetry is essential to understand the mahbup. In this article, first, the understanding of love in divan poetry was briefly mentioned. Then, the meanings of the word mahbup in the dictionaries were given. Since mahbup is masculine as an Arabic word, this may cause some controversy. For this reason, the issue of the gender of “mahbûb” in Arabic and Turkish was discussed. Finally, the use of the word mahbup in masnavis was emphasized.