Yakup Afvï as a Hudayi Commentator and His Lem’a-i Nurâniyye

Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî who is a well-known sufi sheik of the Jalwatiyah order is also the aut- hor a divan which consists of his mystical poetry. Ibn al-Arabî’s teachings, especially that of vahdet-i vücûd (Oneness of Being), is very evident in Hüdâyî’s poems both in terms of content and spirit. The commentary written on Hüdâyî’s poetry by Yâkûb Afvî, a 18th century mystic of the Jalwatiyah order, attests to this point. In a book titled Lem‘a-i Nûrâniyye (Gleam of Light) Afvî commentated the five couplets of Hüdâyî’s seven-couplet nutq which starts with the following one: we’ve been burning since eternity / we have been the luna moths of the candle of love. No academic study is available on Lem‘a-i Nûrâniyye, though it is mentioned in several sources and five copies of it are found in different libraries. According to Avfî, Hüdâyî deals in this poem with the emergence of the existent into the realm of existence from Allah, which is called mebde (genesis), and its return to its essence which is otherwise known as me‘âd (resurrection). Avfî starts his book by an introduction which consists of two parts where he elaborates on these two concepts and thus provides an intellectual background to his commentary. There he discusses the reason behind the creation of the universe by Allah and the various stages of its return to Him from a vahdet-i vücûd perspective. The commentary on the couplets is found in the third chapters of the book. In the concluding part the commentator, Avfi, puts a vocabulary of selected mystic concepts by using Cürcâni’s famous book Ta‘rifat or Definition. Taken as a whole, this book is an important study not only because it provides a framework to understand Hüdâyî’s poetry but also because it reveals Avfî’s mystic perceptions.