MUSTAFA AZBÎ’S COMMENTARY ON NİYAZÎ-İ MISRÎ’S GHAZAL WITH THE REDIF “İÇRE” / MUSTAFA AZBÎ’NİN NİYÂZÎ-İ MISRÎ’NİN “İÇRE” REDİFLİ GAZELİNE ŞERHİ

Niyâzî-i Mısrî is among the poets who has most-commented poetries. One of the comments which is written for Mısrî's poetry as a product of tekke (dervish lodge) poetry belongs to Mustafa Azbî, a sufî poet of XVIII th. century. Azbî is the palace sergeant who was in charge of bringing Nîyazî-i Mısrî into exile in Rodos. However, because he was affected by Mısrî's inner characteristics, sergeant Azbî Mustafa laid down his job, attached himself to Mısrî, became his dervish and served him for about twenty years. Apart from his works Dîvân and Dîvân-ı Tahmîs-i Niyâzî-i Mısrî, Azbî has a work titled Şerh-i Gazel-i Mısrî which is the topic of this article. The only copy of Şerh-i Gazel-i Mısrî that we could confirmed is registered at Suleymaniye Library, Hacı Mahmut Efendi Collection number 3056. In this work which can be categorised as a commentary work of both sufi poet and commentator since contains poetries of a sufi poet and also commentaries of a sufi commentator, Azbî commented a seven couplets ghazal with the redif (repetitive words at the end of every couplets of poetry) “içre”. The commentary composed of 43 folios. In this article, firstly Azbî's life and work is mentioned in a detailed way; then, transcripted text is fallowed by evaluation of the work's description, scribal, content, method and expression technique. Azbî, the commentator who explains basic issues of sufism (tasawwuf) briefly from the aspect of unity of existance theory (vahdet-i vucûd) within the frame of the meaning of the couplet, discusses spiritual journey to be a perfect human-being (insan-ı kâmil) by using stories and metaphors. This mystically deep work is a commentary work that written by using emblems in an allegorical style.