A TRANSLATION OF THE QASIDA-I KHAMRIYYA BY AHMED ?AFĪ BEGH / AHMED SÂFÎ BEY’İN KASÎDE-İ HAMRİYYE TERCÜMESİ

Ibn al-Fāri?, one of the leading ?ūfī figures of Arabic literature, composed a forty-one verse eulogy, al-Qa?ida al-Khamriyya (The Eulogy of Wine), in which he focused on the theme of divine love and soon later, the eulogy, which attributed ?ūfī meanings to such terms as wine, tavern and goblet, received a great welcome from the ?ūfī circles. The eulogy came to have a distinguished position with its ?ūfī character and led to the production of many translations and commentaries in Arabic, Persian and Turkish literatures. There have been produced eight translations and commentaries of al-Qa?ida al-Khamriyya in Turkish literature and A?med ?afī Begh is the author of one of them. A?med ?afī is a late Ottoman ?ūfī scholar and intellectual, who mastered the Turkish, Persian and Arabic languages to the extent of composing poems in them. His Qa?īda-i Khamriyya Tarjumasi (Turkish Translation of the Wine Eulogy) is included in his magnum opus, Safīnat al-?afī (The Ship of the Pure), running up to eighteen volumes and remaining still in manuscript. Safīnat al-?afī is a biographical work that tells the life stories of the earlier or contemporary poets, shaykhs and scholars, providing valuabe information about the history of culture and arts. The Qa?īda-i Khamriyya Tarjumasi, included in Safīnat al-?afī, is a complete Turkish translation of the eulogy, unlike the former Turkish translations. By this translation, the author aimed to remove the ambiguities existing in the former translations, relying on the lexical meanings of the words occurring in the text. However, one can see that A?med ?afī Begh made some additions to the lexical or literal meanings of the words. This study is intended to investigate into the life and works of A?med ?afī Begh and analyze the Qa?īda-i Khamriyya Tarjumasi, offering a critical edition of the text on the basis of a comparison of its two avaible manuscripts.