Abstract
Mustafa Maksûd Resâ Efendi’s Quintuplet of Qasida al-Burda
Ka^b bin Zuhair’s (d. 24/645?) famous poem, whose
opening line is Banat Su^âd, is referred to as Qasida al-
Burda (Ode of the Mantle) in the literature because the
poet was awarded with the Prophet’s blessed mantle in his
dream, and it holds special importance for being a
pioneering work for the eulogies of its type. Busiri (d.
696/1297?), who lived about six centuries after Ka^b, wrote
Al-Kawakib ad-Durriya fi Madg Khayr al-Bariya, a eulogy
that expresses his deep love for the Prophet, and the poem
is known with the same title in Islamic literature.
Although Ka^b’s poem is the first example of its type,
Busiri’s work has attracted greater attention from classical
Turkish poets for its story, literary identity, and lyrical
style. Since the 15th century, Busiri’s work has been
brought to Turkish literature in different forms, such as
translations, commentaries and quintuplets. Mustafa
Maksûd Resâ Efendi (d. 1269/1852-53), who wrote many
poems on the themes of love and wisdom, as well as a
mystical work, titled Münyetü's-Sâlik, was one of the
poets who hoped for the intercession of the Prophet in
writing eulogies in the form of quintuplets. Written in the
aruz prosody of mefâ^ilün fe^ilâtün mefâ^ilün fe^ilün, the
work consists of 160 cantos. Resâ, like many other poets,
wrote his quintuplet, which he divided into ten parts, in a
free style, and he succeeded in making the meaning of the
source couplets felt. In other words, he embellished the
meaning he got from the source text with his own poetic
talent and tried to express it in an original style. Enriching
his work from time to time with quotations from verses
from the Qur’an and hadiths, the poet wrote thirty-seven couplets of the source poem in Arabic and eleven couplets
in Persian in the form of quintuplets.
Keywords
Busiri, Qasida al-Burda, Mustafa Maksûd Resâ Efendi, quintuplet.