Zarîfî Omar Baba From Ruscuk and His Glossary Of Verse-Prose Sufi Terminology: Istilahât-i Mashayikh

There is not enough information about Zarîfî Omar Baba in the sources we have studied. According to the available sources Zarîfî Omar Baba, who was from Ruscuk village within the borders of Bulgaria today, participated in Sa’diyye Sect and he ascended to the position of sheikh in this sect. Zarîfî has two works which are mentioned in the biograhical antologies. These are Pend-name and Divan. Yet, in the catalogue searches we have done 7 more works, which are denoted to belong to him, have been identified. These works are: Tasavvuf-nâme, İsm-i A’zam, Kitâb-ı İ'tikâd, Hikâye-yi Kan Kalesi, Beyân-ı Ser-encâm, Kısasu’l-Enbiyâ and Istılahât-ı Mashayikh. As far as we could study, Zarîfî’s works have religion-sufism and moral contents. His work, Istılahât-ı Mashayikh, which has not been mentioned in the sources, is a kind of dictionary of sufism terms. In this work, which starts with 23 verses narrating some religion and sufism themes, 70 sufism terms are explained in all. It is possible to group these terms into two as names and positions. In this work, names and their characteristics are written in prose while positions are written in verse. Firstly in verse, the author explains the name which identifies the qualities and characterisitcs of human being in his own sufistic point. Then in prose, he explains the positions the one, who has the characteristics of this name, will get to. In this article Zarîfî’s life, his literary personality and works; language, style and contents of Istılahât-ı Mashayikh have been examined. Besides, some terms in this work have been compared to other sufism dictionaries in order to clarify that meanings ascribed to the same terms show difference according to sects, tariqah and perhaps according to time and place. Finally, the text of Istılahât-ı Mashayikh has been translated into contemporary letters in accordance with its two copies by critical edition method.

Keywords

Zarîfî Omar Baba, Istılahât-ı Mashayikh, mysticism terms.