EVALUATION OF THE SECTION ON LISTENING IN ABDULLAH BOSNEVİ’S ŞERH-İ CEZİRE-İ MASNEVİ

Abstract

As it is known, Mevlânâ Celaleddîn-i Rûmî (d.1273) wrote his Mesnevî in Persian, following the conventions of the period. Both at the time it was written and in the following centuries, many translations and commentaries were made from the Mesnevî to Turkish, since it was not sufficiently understood by those who did not know Persian. “Cezîre-i Mesnevî” is the work of a sufi person named Yûsuf Sîneçâk (d.1546), one of the great Mevlevî. Cezîre-i Mesnevî consists of three hundred and sixty-six couplets and is an anthological selection from Mevlânâ’s Mesnevî. Sîneçâk’s work has been annotated and explained by different people at different times. Abdullah Bosnevî (d.1644) and İbrahim Cevrî (d.1654) commented on Cezîre-i Mesnevî in verse; İlmî Dede (d.1611), Abdülmecid Sivasi (d.1639) and Şeyh Galib (d.1799) also commented in prose. Abdullah’s commentary consists of a total of 9097 couplets, and this work was completed in 1628. Mevlânâ’s Masnavi begins with the words “bishnev=listen”. Therefore, both Sîneçâk and other masnavi commentators have particularly focused on the subject of “listening”. Bosnevî commented on eight couplets titled “der beyân-ı bî-derkî-i müstemi’an”. We can translate this title into Turkish as “the listener’s lack of understanding or the unsympathetic listeners”. Here, important lessons are given on the qualities of the listeners and on the etiquette of listening. Poet Abdullah explains the characteristics that the speaker and the listener should have here. It also explains manners of speech and conversation. In this study, some parts of Abdullah Bosnevî’s Şerh-i Cezîre-i Mesnevî were re-read and analyzed.