Veiled Expressions of the Sacred: Ghazal, Genre, and Mystical Experience in Neshāṭī’s Poetry

Abstract

This article examines how religious experience is articulated through genre in the poetry of the seventeenth-century Ottoman Mawlawī shaykh Neshāṭī (d. 1674), focusing on the striking contrast between his ghazals and non-ghazal compositions. While Neshāṭī’s qaṣīdas, mathnawīs and other formal genres employ an explicit and direct religious language—addressing God, the Prophet, sacred figures, and doctrinal themes—his ghazals are dominated by imagery of wine, love, and the beloved, which at first glance appears markedly profane. Rather than reading this contrast as a sign of secularization or doctrinal inconsistency, the article argues that it reflects a conscious poetic strategy shaped by the expressive style of the ghazal. Through a close reading of Neshāṭī’s Dīwān, the study demonstrates that religious meaning in ghazals is not absent but deliberately rendered implicit. Drawing on motifs such as the mirror, secret (sirr), annihilation (fanāʾ fīʾllāh), and states of spiritual contraction, Neshāṭī transforms the language of human love into a vehicle for divine experience. In this context, the ghazal emerges as a genre particularly suited to conveying religious meaning through ambiguity, emotional intensity, and symbolic indirection rather than overt doctrinal exposition. By situating Neshāṭī within both the Mawlawī tradition and the aesthetics of Sabk-i Hindī, this article highlights how genre manifests religious expression in Ottoman poetry. It proposes that divine encounter in Neshāṭī’s work is realized less through explicit theological discourse than through the affective and symbolic potential of the ghazal. In doing so, the study offers a new reading of Neshāṭī’s poetry and contributes to broader discussions on the relationship between literary/lyrical genre, mysticism, and religious experience in Islamic literary traditions.

1. Introduction

Neshāṭī, a seventeenth-century Ottoman Mawlawī shaykh (d. 1085/1674), displays a striking difference in the persona of the poet across various genres in his Dīwān. While his qaṣīdas are dominated by an explicit and direct religious language addressed to God, the Prophet, and sacred figures, his ghazals foreground a love discourse that revolves around wine, the tavern, and the beloved’s beauty—a discourse that appears, at first glance, markedly profane. Should this generic bifurcation be read as a sign of worldliness at odds with Neshāṭī’s ṣūfī identity, or rather as the outcome of a poetic regime in which the ghazal circulates mystical experience in a more veiled, ambiguous, and affectively intensified form? The question thus shifts the focus from the absence of religious discourse in the ghazal to the possibility of its transformation.1

Neshāṭī offers an especially productive case for examining this genre-based divide. Not only is he among the relatively few Ottoman poets who rose to the rank of shaykh within the Mawlawī order; he is also a Dīwān poet of high literary prestige within the seventeenth-century Ottoman canon. His poetic world cannot be reduced to a Perso-Ottoman inheritance solely seen through Mawlānā Rūmī (d. 1273) and Ḥāfiẓ (d. 1390)—Neshāṭī adopted the Sabk-i Hindī, widely regarded as one of the period’s “modern” aesthetic pursuits within Persian poetics, and he personally composed a commentary on selected ghazals by ʿUrfī-yi Shīrāzī, (d. 1591) one of the style’s leading representatives. This layered intellectual and ṣūfī background suggests that Neshāṭī’s differing implementations of religious discourse across the ghazal and non-ghazal genres may well constitute a deliberate poetic choice.

The central claim of this article is that the downplay of explicit religious and mystical diction in Neshāṭī’s ghazals is neither due to piety nor secularization; it is, rather, a consciously adopted strategy within the ghazal’s poetic regime. Whereas Neshāṭī articulates his ṣūfī identity directly in genres that invite overt statements—such as the qaṣīda and the mathnawī—he circulates religious experience in the ghazal through veiled, ambiguous, and figurative metaphors. Based on a close reading of the Dīwān, this study treats the thematic gap between ghazal and non-ghazal genres not as a contradiction but as a poetic preference shaped by the ways in which genre structures the articulation of religious experience. In doing so, the article highlights the ghazal’s capacity in Ottoman poetry to represent the divine not through explicit declaration, but through suggestion, indeterminacy, and affective intensity.

To date, no scholarly work has examined Neshāṭī’s Dīwān and its Ṣūfī orientation in a comprehensive and interpretively sustained manner. Existing scholarship has largely aimed at identifying and classifying elements of the Dīwān. In this regard, Ömer Savran’s doctoral dissertation (Savran 2003) provides a comprehensive inventory of thematic and formal features in Neshāṭī’s Dīwān, yet it does not seek to develop an interpretive framework for their poetic functions or their roles in meaning-making. Similarly, Neshāṭī’s poetry has generally been discussed within studies that treat the poets of the century collectively, often under thematic categories such as time, space, or particular images (Yıldırım 2020; Baykut 2010; Kaplan 2022; Yentür 2003). The limited number of MA theses dedicated directly to the Dīwān have likewise tended to focus on identifying lexical and phrasal patterns—especially in the depiction of the beloved—rather than framing the ghazal’s relation to religious and mystical meaning as a generic and discursive problem.

In addition, English-language scholarship on Neshāṭī is very limited. Beyond papers that concentrate on a single naẓīre (Sılay 1996) or offer a brief reading of one ghazal (Kalpaklı 1997), there is no sustained study centered on the Dīwān. Building on the descriptive groundwork of prior research, this article aims to offer the first detailed/focused reading of Neshāṭī’s Dīwān through the lens of divine encounter, treating the difference in religious discourse between the ghazal and non-ghazal genres as a poetic strategy. I propose a new interpretation of the tension between human and divine love in the poetry of a Mawlawī shaykh by showing—through Neshāṭī as a case—how poetic genres in Ottoman literature shape the forms of articulating religious experience.

The nature of the ghazal as a genre, its thematic transformations, and the expressive strategies of love discourse have been discussed extensively in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman literary contexts. As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam (Schimmel 1982) demonstrates why, in classical Islamic literatures, love is so often articulated through veiled, metaphorical, and indirect idioms; Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry (Meisami 2003) argues that poetic meaning cannot be considered independently of generic form. Taken together, such studies underscore that the ghazal differs from other genres not only in theme, but also in its modes of meaning production. In Ottoman literature, it is likewise well known that the ghazal may, in some cases, adopt an overtly profane love metaphor, while in others it retains its mystical character. Yet the gray area between these archetypes—configurations that neither fully suppress religious experience nor openly proclaim it—have not been sufficiently examined as a generic and rhetorical problem. Reading Neshāṭī’s Dīwān to navigate this literary domain, I attempt to show how the ghazal can express veiled religious and mystical meaning.

A striking and widely observable phenomenon in Neshāṭī’s poetry—one that forms one of the central questions of this article—is the contrast between the ghazal’s more profane and ambiguous appearance and the relative openness with which other genres display religious themes. Even a brief and general comparison of Mawlānā’s Mathnavī and Saʿdī (d. 1292)’s Gulistān reveals that religious themes can be articulated with ease in mathnavī-type works, whereas the ghazal remains an indeterminate expressive space. At the same time, the existence of poets who devoted their ghazals explicitly to religious themes and moral instruction—such as Neshāṭī’s contemporary Nābī (d. 1712)—demonstrates that the ghazal is not inherently bound to a profane register.

Within this context, I examine—through a close reading of Neshāṭī’s Dīwān—how religious themes are deployed as a literary strategy across ghazal and non-ghazal genres in the work of a poet who was: (1) closely connected to the Ottoman court, (2) well versed in Persian poetry, (3) composed ghazals in Persian, (4) was directly influenced by the Sabk-i Hindī aesthetic, and (5) stood out among the prominent Mawlawī figures of the Ottoman world. Focusing on this genre-based differentiation, the article investigates how divine encounter can be observed in a veiled and indirect form within a significant ṣūfī poet’s Dīwān.

Religious discourse in Neshāṭī operates on two distinct levels: it is articulated openly and directly in non-ghazal literary genres, whereas in the ghazals it is transformed into an implicit and elevated religious discourse that Neshāṭī employs deliberately. Accordingly, the apparent withdrawal of religious and mystical language in his ghazals is not a sign of deficient belief or of secularization; rather, it constitutes an expressive and interpretive strategy consciously adopted within the poetic regime of the ghazal. While Neshāṭī articulates his ṣūfī identity directly in genres that permit explicit discourse—such as the qaṣīda and the mathnavī—in the ghazal he circulates religious experience through implicit, ambiguous, and metaphorical language. This implicitness does not suppress ṣūfī meaning; on the contrary, it is a deliberate choice that compels the reader toward interpretation, suggesting the sacred through symbol, emotional intensity, and indeterminacy rather than stating it directly.

Accordingly, the first section will examine the qaṣīdas—and a single qiṭʿa—in which Neshāṭī articulates religious discourse openly, outlining the general contours of this explicit religious theme. The second section will then discuss the themes of human and divine love present in Neshāṭī’s ghazals. In the third and final section, I will first analyze the principal symbols and devices through which worldly love is transformed into divine love in these ghazals, and will then address the reasons why worldly and divine love coexist within the Dīwān. In this way, the article both demonstrates how religious themes are represented through explicit and implicit modes of expression in the poetic world of Neshāṭī, and offers a concrete case study illustrating the strategies through which he employs the ghazal genre for the expression of mystical experience in classical poetry.

To make sense of the implicit religious discourse in Neshāṭī’s ghazals, it is first necessary to examine the texts in which he articulates religious themes in an explicit manner.

2. Qaṣīdas and Explicit Religious Discourse in Neshāṭī

2.1. Naʿts and the Miʿrājiyya: Explicit Divine Encounter

When one considers the intense depictions of wine and the beloved in Neshāṭī’s ghazals, he may not at first glance appear to be a particularly devout poet. Yet, merely looking at the titles of his qaṣīdas is enough to establish him as a pious Mawlawī shaykh. As is well-known, in the conventional ordering of Ottoman Dīwāns, qaṣīdas occupy the introductory position. These poems follow a strict hierarchical arrangement. Accordingly, if the poet has composed a tevḥīd praising the oneness and existence of God or a munājāt written in the form of a supplication, these are placed at the very beginning of the Dīwān. These are followed by poems written in praise of the Prophet Muḥammad, and subsequently by qaṣīdas dedicated to sultans, religious authorities, and other statesmen. Poems addressed to religious figures may also be placed either before poems dedicated to sultans or after those addressed to other statesmen.

Neshāṭī’s Dīwān opens with three panegyric poems composed in praise of the Prophet Muḥammad. In these poems, the Prophet is extolled through powerful and exalted imagery. The poet states that no matter how much he praises him, it is impossible to do justice to his true stature:

Olsa ne qadar edā-yı medḥüñ

Mümkün mi yine sezā-yı medḥüñ

(Neşâtî Ahmed Dede 2019, p. 38)2

(However perfectly one may fashion your praise, can it yet truly be worthy of you?)

Because the sun and the moon partake of his light, they illuminate the world with radiance and purity:

Mihr u meh olmazdı böyle pertev-endāz-ı ṣafā

Olmasa ger maẓhar-ı nūr-ı Peyamber rūz u sheb (33)

(The sun and moon would never pour forth such radiant bliss, did they not, day and night, reflect the Prophet’s light.)

In one couplet, by referring to the Prophet as “ol pādisheh-i serīr-i levlāk” (36), Neshāṭī alludes to the famous saying “law lāka law lāka…” (“were it not for you, I would not have created the universe”), a report rejected in ḥadīth scholarship yet widely accepted within ṣūfī circles. In these three naʿts, the Prophet is thus portrayed as a figure situated at the center of the cosmic order, one who gathers the meaning of the entire universe within himself.

The fourth qaṣīda of the Dīwān is a miʿrājiyya that narrates the Prophet’s miraculous journey to heaven. Rather than being framed as a merely spatial ascent, this poem is constructed as the transcendence of the realm of mumkināt (the contingent world) and a directed movement toward the divine presence:

Shevq ile ʿurūc idüp semāya

ʿAẓm itdi Cenāb-ı Kibriyāya (41)

(With longing he rose, ascending to the heavens, and set his course toward the Presence of Divine Majesty.)

In this qaṣīda, the following couplets, which describe the Prophet’s entrance into the presence of God, are among the most intense and explicit examples of divine encounter in the Dīwān:

Qaṭʿ eyledi rāh-ı mümkinātı

Ṭayy itdi ḥudūd-ı shesh cihātı (44)

(He cut through the path of contingent being, and folded up the bounds of the six directions.)

Bir perde-i nūr olup hüveydā

Bī-reng ü laṭīf-i ḥayret-efzā (44)

(A veil of light appeared, becoming manifest—colorless, subtle, and intensifying wonder.)

At the conclusion of the miʿrājiyya, Neshāṭī emphasizes that the divine encounter cannot be fully articulated through language, thereby acknowledging the limits of speech and explicit expression (44). This gesture suggests a broader search for alternative modes through which religious experience can be expressed in poetry.

The fifth qaṣīda of the Dīwān is a marthiya devoted to the martyrdom of the Prophet’s family at Karbalāʾ. In this elegy, nightingales are depicted as lamenting, hyacinths as disheveled, and roses as silent in their grief. The poet expresses astonishment that his tears do not turn into a deluge overflowing the bounds of possibility—they do not, in other words, inundate the entire cosmos (45). The presence of a Karbalāʾ elegy, a genre that occupies a central place in Shiʿi ritual practices and in various ṣūfī traditions, constitutes one of the clear manifestations of explicit religious themes in the Dīwān. This marthiya is significant in that it demonstrates that Neshāṭī’s religious discourse is not confined to praise and exaltation alone, but also encompasses pain, mourning, and collective memory within an overtly religious metaphor.

2.2. Qaṣīdas for Mawlānā and Explicit Ṣūfī Discourse

Although Neshāṭī was a Mawlawī shaykh, his Dīwān lacks many of the elements frequently encountered in the poetry of other Mawlawī poets, such as explicit references to the Mawlawī order, samāʿ, or Shams. While Mawlawī poets like Kechecizāde İzzet Molla (d. 1829) regularly include references to Mawlawī identity at the end of almost every ghazal, Neshāṭī’s ghazals are striking for their complete absence of such markers. By contrast, in the qaṣīdas—one of the non-ghazal literary genres in which religious themes are articulated with relative freedom—Neshāṭī composed two qaṣīdas in praise of Mawlānā. Significantly, these poems are placed before the qaṣīdas addressed to the sultan, thereby positioning Mawlānā above the ruler within the internal protocol of the Dīwān.

Mawlānā is depicted as the divine candle that illuminates the universe:

Ol shemʿ-i hüdā ki feyḍ-i dhātı

Gharq eyledi nūra kāʾinātı (51)

(He is the candle of divine guidance whose essential effusion has submerged the entire cosmos in light.)

His every word is described as miraculous and filled with countless mysteries (51). Mawlānā is further portrayed as the heir to the Prophet’s inner secret and as one who has attained divine grace (51). Neshāṭī compares Mawlānā with the ṣūfī poet Abū Saʿīd-i Abū’l-Khayr (d. 1049) and explicitly states Mawlānā’s superiority over him (51). Neshāṭī’s preference for Mawlānā—who articulated religious meaning through veiled and elevated metaphors—over Abū Saʿīd can be connected to the expressive strategy Neshāṭī himself adopts in his poetry. This preference reflects differing modes of expression: Abū Saʿīd favors direct articulation of religious meaning, whereas Mawlānā’s ghazals rely on symbolic indirection, closely paralleling Neshāṭī’s own poetic practice.

Neshāṭī asks Mawlānā to bestow his grace upon him, stating that only through this grace can the rust on the mirror of the heart be removed and the radiant face of unity truly be perceived (52):

Luṭfuñdan olursa ger mücellā

Āyīne-i qalb-i jeng-peydā (52)

(If, through your grace, the rust-stained mirror of the heart is made radiant,)

ʿAks eyleyüp anda naqsh-i tecrīd

Yüz göstere ṣad ṣafā-yı tefrīd (52)

(Then, reflected within it, the form of abstraction appears, and the radiant face of singularity reveals itself in a hundred modes of purity.)

This appeal presents Mawlānā not merely as an object of praise but as an active spiritual mediator whose favor enables inner purification and access to the experience of unity.

2.3. Panegyrics for Statesmen and the Zone of Liminality

Neshāṭī composed panegyrics for three sultans as well as for numerous statesmen. Among these are two qaṣīdas addressed to Bahāyī Efendi (d. 1654), the poet–shaykhulislām of the period. In these poems, Bahāyī Efendi is portrayed as one who ennobles the office of the shaykhulislām (77). His poetry, which elevates the literary quality of his time, is likened to divine revelation (78). He is described as a figure who protects both religion and the world from corruption and as one who is versed in the secrets of the night of the Miʿrāj (81). His heart is illuminated by manifold branches of knowledge, shining with the light of Mount Ṭūr where Moses conversed with God (85).

In some qaṣīdas written for statesmen, religious themes are largely absent. There are other figures—such as Fażıl Ahmad Pasha (d. 1676)—for whom religious imagery is strongly emphasized. For instance, while praising Fażıl Ahmad Pasha, Neshāṭī employs the expression “Innā fataḥnā” (91), citing the first verse of Sūrat al-Fatḥ and most likely alluding to the conquest of Crete carried out under Fażıl Ahmad Pasha’s command. This citation constitutes one of the rare instances of direct Qurʾānic quotation in Neshāṭī’s entire Dīwān. Fażıl Ahmad Pasha is further praised for gladdening the Prophet’s soul and for shedding the blood of enemies like the sword of ʿAlī (93).

These examples demonstrate that, in his panegyrics for statesmen, Neshāṭī does not treat religious discourse as a fixed or obligatory component, but rather as a flexible field of possibility shaped by the status of the addressee and the function of the poem. Divine references in these poems neither develop into a central narrative of mystical experience nor are they entirely excluded; instead, Neshāṭī implements them in a controlled and functional manner within the boundaries of political praise.

2.4. Other Texts: Qıṭʿa-i Neshāṭī and Ḥilye-i Enbiyā

In the qaṣīdas written for sultans and statesmen, the divine encounter is relatively limited due to the panegyrical function of the genre. By contrast, in the poem entitled Qıṭʿa-i Neshāṭī, placed at the end of the qaṣīdas and written not for another person but directly for himself, Neshāṭī, as a ṣūfī shaykh, engages in an inner reckoning. In this poem, he addresses his own nafs (the lower self) and enumerates his shortcomings. He confesses that he is filled with worldly concerns, that he does not sufficiently reflect on the afterlife, and that he gazes upon the world with childish desires. He exhorts himself to “know the jewel of your essence, discover the maʿdin (ore, the inner source of the self) within yourself, grasp the nature of things, and comprehend the point of unity.” This sincere and mystical mode of expression represents an exceptional instance in Neshāṭī’s Dīwān where self-narration and divine encounter are closely intertwined (118–119). The reference to metaphorical love and true love in this qıṭʿa will be addressed separately below.

Neshāṭī’s 197-couplet mathnavī entitled Ḥilye-i Enbiyā (Kaya 2022), which he did not include in his Dīwān, likewise demonstrates his ease in addressing religious themes in non-ghazal genres. This work, which describes in particular the physical appearances of fourteen prophets, occupies an important place in Neshāṭī’s poetic corpus as a direct example of divine encounter.

The explicit and direct religious discourse observed in the various examples discussed in this section clearly shows that Neshāṭī is not a poet who avoids religious themes. Consequently, the stylistic choices evident in his ghazals are best explained as the result of a conscious and deliberate preference.

3. The Power of the Ghazal: Levels of Love in Neshāṭī’s Ghazals

The ghazal is the poetic genre that allows the widest range of movement for language and imagery in classical poetry, enabling poetic expression to realize its full potential with the greatest freedom. In classical Arabic poetry, the ghazal did not exist as an independent section; rather, it functioned as the taghazzul—the moment of lyrical release within the qaṣīda, where the poem reached its most exuberant point. In Persian poetry, however, the ghazal acquired an autonomous identity, and this exuberant character was preserved in Perso-Ottoman poetic tradition as well. Poets such as Mawlānā (d. 1273) and Saʿdī (d. 1292) addressed more serious and explicitly religious subjects in genres like the mathnavī, while articulating their ghazals on a more passionate and liberated plane. In the poetry of Ḥāfiẓ (d. 1390), who is renowned above all for his ghazals, the genre pushes the boundaries of metaphor to such an extent that it has given rise to endless debates on truth and metaphor in later literary discourse.

Within the Ottoman poetic tradition, the ghazal likewise functions as a relatively unrestrained expressive space; yet the conception of love articulated within it assumes a distinct tone in each Dīwān and for each poet. There are poets such as Fużūlī (d. 1556), who sustain a Ḥāfiẓ-inspired classical discourse of love; others, like Nadīm (d. 1730), who carry love into a clearly profane register; figures such as Nābī, who fill the ghazal with ḥikemī (didactic) poetry and advice literature; and poets like Shaykh Ghālib (d. 1799), who construct the ghazal around an intensely divine thematic core.

In Neshāṭī’s ghazals, although human (basharī) love appears dominant at first glance, human and divine love frequently coexist side by side. Some of his poems are too concrete and worldly to be read as mystical, while others are articulated within a deeply religious and mystical register that expresses ṣūfī belief with intensity. Before examining how Neshāṭī introduces an implicit religious mode of expression into the ghazal, it is therefore necessary to consider the general configuration of these two principal themes—human and divine love—across his poetry.

3.1. Human Love

3.1.1. Examples of Human Love

Some of Neshāṭī’s ghazals display an overtly shūhāne (playful, coquettish) tone. This vivid and uninhibited discourse of love recalls Nedīm; indeed, as Bayram Ali Kaya has also noted, it can even be said that Neshāṭī helped pave the way for Nedīm, the foremost representative of the shūhāne ghazal (Kaya 2007). What first strikes a reader leafing through Neshāṭī’s Dīwān is precisely this intense presence of human love and wine imagery.

For instance, the following couplet suggests that when the beloved walks coquettishly with her graceful stature, the world is plunged into a tumult resembling the Day of Judgment:

Gāhī ki gele nāz ile reftāre o qāmet

Dünyāyı ṭutar shūrish-i ghavghā-yı qıyāmet (133)

(When that graceful stature advances with coquettish gait, the world is seized by a tumult like the chaos of the Day of Judgment.)

The poet beholds the beloved in the garden of beauty: her face resembling a rose, her hair like hyacinth, and the gleaming curls of her tresses. When he sees her lips and perspiring face, he is reminded of wine and spirits:

Bāgh-ı hüsnün geh gülin seyr eyle gāhī sünbülin

Tābish-i rukh ṭurra-i pür-tāb gelsün cheshmüñe (196)

(At times behold the rose of the garden of beauty, at times its hyacinth, so that the radiance of the face and the gleaming curls may come before your eyes.)

Leblerin seyr it temāshā kıl rukh-ı khoy-kerdesin

Geh ʿaraq gāhī sharāb-ı nāb gelsün cheshmüñe (196)

(Gaze upon the lips; behold the perspiring face—so that at times sweat, at times pure wine, may appear before your eyes.)

These couplets portray the beloved’s physical beauty and the sensory dimension of love with striking immediacy, without veering into eroticism. Although some approaches attempt to interpret elements such as the beloved’s hair, lips, and cheeks through mystical meanings, the primary purpose of this depiction is the beloved’s corporeal beauty. In another couplet, the poet’s heart is said to be captivated by the pleasure of her life-nourishing, ruby-colored lips:

Dil esīr-i ledhdhet-i laʿl-ı leb-i cān-perverüñ

Cān giriftār-ı dü zülf-i dil-nevāzuñdur senüñ (172)

(My heart is enslaved by the pleasure of your life-nourishing, ruby lips; my soul is ensnared by your two tresses that caress the heart.)

As already shown, this theme of human love is exceedingly widespread throughout Neshāṭī’s Dīwān. The poet prefers a single moment spent with the beloved in a wine gathering to the lifespan of Khiḍr and the life of Jesus (165); the lover cannot restrain himself from thinking of the beloved’s lips (126); the beloved’s intoxicated glance throws the entire world into turmoil (137); and the lover does not dare to gaze directly upon the beloved’s beauty (131). These examples illustrate how pervasive and visibly foregrounded human love is as a theme in the Dīwān of Neshāṭī.

3.1.2. Neshāṭī’s View of Human Love

Human love in Neshāṭī’s poetry is depicted through concrete contours and elements of physical beauty. Whether these elements of beauty can—or should—be interpreted through a more mystical, ṣūfī lens, or whether these poems were written when Neshāṭī was a mature shaykh or rather produced during his youth, lie beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, it is evident that Neshāṭī himself explicitly categorizes love into two distinct types in his Dīwān. This provides a clear example of how Neshāṭī conceptualizes love and positions these couplets within a specific hierarchy of values.

Neshāṭī’s approach to love appears across six independent couplets in the ghazal below. This repetition indicates that the distinction in question is not marginal or casually articulated, but rather reflects an established and consistent line of thought in Neshāṭī’s poetry.

For Neshāṭī, love is divided into two kinds: metaphorical, surface-level love (ʿishq-i majāzī) and true love (ʿishq-i ḥaqīqī). Love directed toward human beings is metaphorical love, whereas true love is love directed toward the divine. In one couplet, reproaching himself for speaking of the beloved and wine, he asks why he does not instead remember the realm of truth—that is, the divine:

Ḥaqīqat illerin añmaz mısın Neshāṭī hīch

Nedür bu dhevk-i ʿaẓīmet reh-i mecāza dakhı (211)

(Do you never recall the realms of Truth, O Neshāṭī? What is this persistent delight in setting out along the path of metaphor?)

In another qaṣīda, he asks:

Reh-i mecāzda tā key bu lagzish-i dāʾim

Dakhı achılmadı mı dīde-i ḥaqīqat-bīn (from the Qaṣīdas) (28)

(How long will this ceaseless stumbling along the path of metaphor endure? Has the eye that beholds Truth not yet been opened?)

He complains:

Ẓāhirüñde qanı ārāyish-i taqwādan ether

Bāṭınuñ olmaya mirʾāt-ı mücellā nice bir (118)

(Where, in your outward bearing, is any trace of the adornment of piety? How long will the inward self fail to become a radiant mirror?)

Then, he challenges himself:

Mestī-i ʿishq-ı mecāz irmedi mi pāyāne

Kendüñi eyleyesin ʿāleme rüsvâ nice bir (119)

(Has the intoxication of metaphorical love not yet come to an end? How long will you expose yourself to disgrace before the world?)

Elsewhere, he states that the beloved’s eyelashes have wounded his heart on account of metaphorical (love) (105), and warns, “take care lest the thorn of metaphor pierce the foot of the heart” (183). In these couplets, it is clear that Neshāṭī designates divine love as true love (ʿishq-i ḥaqīqī) and human love as shallow, metaphorical love (ʿishq-i majāzī). From this, it follows that the poet includes human love—what he terms metaphorical love—in his poetry as a reflection of his own human nature; yet, as he advances as a ṣūfī shaykh and turns toward true, divine love, he comes to disapprove of his worldly poems and engages in introspection, repeatedly calling himself to “move beyond metaphor.”

3.2. Divine Love

Although examples of what Neshāṭī calls “true love” (ḥaqīqī ʿishq), that is, divine love, can be found in his ghazals, these examples do not form the dominant element of the Dīwān. Bayram Ali Kaya makes the following important observation about Neshāṭī:

Despite being a Mawlawī shaykh and composing poems for Mawlānā Jalāladdīn-i Rūmī, Neshāṭī’s poetry does not display a pronounced articulation of the order to which he belonged, nor of ṣūfīsm in a general sense. In fact, it has been suggested that he is not a ṣūfī poet in the classical sense; rather, as is often the case with many Dīwān poets, he makes use of ṣūfī metaphors, thereby lending depth and subtlety to the emotion of love, which constitutes the main theme of his poetry.

(Kaya 2007)

Neshāṭī is not a poet who places mystical discourse at the center of his poetry. Although he refers to divine love, the fundamental axis of his ghazals is not constructed around this discourse. Nevertheless, within his poems one encounters religious and mystical expressions such as walking through deserts on the path of the Kaʿba of Love (146), turning away from the world and regarding the entire universe as no more than a handful of thorns in one’s hand (146), and fearlessly setting the ship of the heart adrift upon the sea of love (147).

One of the scholars who has discussed these multilayered meanings most comprehensively within the Islamic poetic tradition is Annemarie Schimmel who notes that the distinction between metaphorical love and true love—and the interpenetration of these two concepts—endows Persian poetry (or, in the context of this article, Perso-Ottoman poetry) with its particular power and aesthetic richness:

As the old proverb says, al-majāz qanṭaratu’l-ḥaqīqa, “The metaphor is the bridge that leads to Reality”; the ṣūfīs knew with Ruzbihan-i Baqlī that love of a human being is the ladder leading to the love of the Merciful. Hence human love was called ʿishq-i majāzī, metaphorical love, in contrast to the pure, true, divine love, ʿishq-i ḥaqīqī. The soul needs the wings of human love to fly toward divine love, and thus many poets claim: “We have directed our qibla toward the quarter of the one who wears his cap awry.” This verse by Ḥasān Dihlawī was imitated time and again, and it is here that Persian poetry gains its specific flavor. The constant oscillation between the two levels of experience often makes it next to impossible to translate or even to understand a poem correctly. It is this ambiguity between the human and the superhuman levels which makes the Persian ghazal so delightful, like a two-faced brocade.

(Schimmel 1982, p. 68)

The tension between metaphor (majāz) and truth (ḥaqīqat) observed in Neshāṭī’s poetry should not be read as a direct repetition of the traditional framework outlined by Schimmel; rather, it appears in a more limited and controlled form, one the ghazal as a genre affords the poet.

It is clear that this distinction is not a formulation unique to Neshāṭī. However, rather than re-examining this broader tradition, the present article aims to demonstrate through which images and expressive strategies, to what extent, and within which limits this inherited framework is put into practice in Neshāṭī’s Dīwān. From this perspective, the following section will examine in detail how divine meaning is constructed in the ghazals through implicit and indirect modes of expression.

4. The Implicit Religious Theme in Neshāṭī’s Ghazals as a Strategy of Expression

Neshāṭī endows the ghazal—a genre that originally emerged to articulate human love—with a ṣūfī character by employing a range of symbolic elements. Before discussing how this strategic mode of expression is implemented and what its possible motivations are, these symbols must first be examined. The very elements that transform human love into divine love and grant it a mystical character constitute the most significant instances in which the divine encounter becomes visible in Neshāṭī’s Dīwān.

4.1. Symbols Through Which Neshāṭī Opens Human Love to Divine Meaning

4.1.1. The Mirror (Āyīne)

One of the most frequently employed symbols in Neshāṭī’s ghazals is the mirror. One of his most celebrated couplets, quoted below, is likewise centered on this image:

İtdük o qadar refʿ-i taʿayyün ki Neshāṭī

Āyīne-i pür-tāb-ı mücellāda nihānuz (157)

(We have effaced all determination and individuation so completely, O Neshāṭī, that we are hidden within the radiant, fully polished mirror.)

In classical Persianate literature, the mirror is among the fundamental symbols representing the lover’s heart. Conceiving the heart as a mirror that reflects the unseen (ghayb) transforms the poet’s speech into a medium that bears wisdom and hidden meaning:

Olsa Neshāṭī n’ola sırr-ı ḥikem her sözüm

Levḥ-i dil āyīne-i ghayb-numādur baña (126)

(If every word of mine bears a secret of wisdom, O Neshāṭī, what wonder is it? For to me, the tablet of the heart is a mirror that reveals the unseen.)

Because the heart is fully purified, it is able to reflect the beloved’s beautiful face like a mirror (178). Likewise, the mirror of the goblet, being as pure as the lover’s heart, is capable of revealing the many worlds to the inner eye (179). By portraying the heart as a mirror that reflects the unseen only through purification, Neshāṭī elevates these couplets beyond an ordinary discourse of love and transforms the ghazal into an expressive space in which ṣūfī meaning is implicitly set into circulation.

4.1.2. Secret (Sirr)

Another fundamental element that elevates the discourse of human love in Neshāṭī’s ghazals to a divine plane is the concept of sirr (secret). In certain couplets, the poet positions himself, his heart, or his poetry as a locus in which divine secrets are preserved—secrets that can only be comprehended by those who are spiritually qualified. This approach enables the ghazal to transcend its surface-level love narrative and acquire a mystical depth. In this context, the following couplet is especially striking:

Tut zemzeme-i nāye Neshāṭī gibi gūshun

Gör ḥālet-i keyfiyyet-i esrār-ı elesti (206)

(Lend your ear to the murmur of the reed, as Neshāṭī does, and behold the states and qualities of the secrets of the assembly of elest (the primordial covenant, Q 7:172).)

In this couplet, it is suggested that if the sound of the reed flute (nāy), an instrument prominently referred to in Mawlānā’s Mathnavī, is listened to in the manner of Neshāṭī, the secrets of the divine encounter that took place in the assembly of elest can be heard. Thus, the act of listening is presented not as a form of worldly pleasure but as a process of primordial remembrance and spiritual apprehension.

In Neshāṭī’s poetry, the heart is a mysterious space of secrets, one that has been intimate with the select gathering of divine love since pre-eternity, and whose meaning cannot be fully grasped even by philosophers. Although the heart may appear, in its outward form, as a small droplet, when perceived with the eye of the soul it is imagined as a pearl-filled sea encompassing both this world and the hereafter (177). Similarly, the poet emphasizes that his pen gives voice to the unseen (58), that he confirms a thousand meanings within a single letter, and that his speech carries a miraculous power (169).

This emphasis on divine secrets transforms Neshāṭī’s ghazal from a simple articulation of human love into an expressive domain in which mystical meaning is set into implicit circulation.

4.1.3. Self-Annihilation (Fanāʾ Fīʾllāh)

Another fundamental element in Neshāṭī’s ghazals that transcends the discourse of human love and carries one into a divine plane is the idea of self-annihilation, known in ṣūfīsm as fanāʾ fīʾllāh. In many couplets, the poet presents the abandonment of the self as the highest degree of love. This approach indicates that the love articulated in the ghazal does not point to an ordinary human passion, but rather to a domain of divine experience.

One of the clearest examples of this understanding appears in the following couplet:

Sevdā-yı tīgh-ı ghamzeñ ile sīne-chākünem

Öldür beni ki teshne-i dhevk-i helākünem (178)

(By passion for the sword of your glance my breast is torn apart; kill me—for I thirst for the pleasure of annihilation.)

Here, the poet longs for the lethal glance of the beloved and defines destruction itself as the highest pleasure of love. Similarly, in another couplet, the lover likens himself to a moth that fearlessly throws itself into the flame of love, expressing the conscious sacrifice of the self:

Ursa ne ʿaceb kendin shemʿ-i rukhuña bī-bāk

Dil bezm-i maḥabbetde pervāne degül mi yā (129)

(What wonder if the heart, fearless, casts itself upon the candle of your face— for is the heart not a moth in the gathering of love?)

In these couplets, the lover’s aim is not to possess the beloved, but to be annihilated on the path to unity with his beloved, to renounce existence itself. In this respect, the love being articulated transcends the limits of human desire and transforms into divine surrender and an experience of fanāʾ.

The indirect reflections of this understanding frequently appear in Neshāṭī’s ghazals: (1) the heart’s realm becoming more prosperous as it grows more ruined (147), (2) the intensification of the ardor of love through the torment inflicted by the beloved (145), (3) enduring suffering while bound by the chains of love without complaint (167), (4) and disregarding social disgrace brought about by the intoxication of love (129). The poet’s preference for suffering on the path of the beloved—and even for annihilation—rather than for union itself clearly demonstrates the divine nature of this love.

4.1.4. Other Ṣūfī Concepts

Although ṣūfī concepts and symbols in Neshāṭī’s Dīwān do not form a systematic or didactic whole, they nonetheless appear in certain couplets as markers that decisively transform the poem’s semantic ground. These elements function as implicit signposts that prevent the ghazal from remaining confined to the framework of human love and instead carry the text into a religious and mystical register.

One particularly striking example in this regard is the association of the beloved’s face with the divine light of Mount Sinai (Ṭūr), where Moses spoke with God:

Mihr-i rukhuñ ki shemʿ-i shebistān-ı Ṭūrdur

Bir nīm-dherre shuʿlesi ʿālem-güdāz olur (145)

(The sun of your face is the candle of the night-chamber of Mount Sinai; even a single half-spark of its flame sets the entire world ablaze.)

The comparison of the beloved’s face to the divine manifestation at Mount Sinai elevates this couplet beyond an ordinary description of beauty, situating the discourse of love within a mystical ground interwoven with associations of revelation and theophany.

Similarly noteworthy is the expression of the bond established between the beloved’s sidelong glance and the lover through the concept of rābıṭa (spiritual bond):

Bu rābıṭa kim ghamze-i cānān ile vardur

Mümkin mi dil-i ʿāshıq ile fāṣıla-i ʿıshq (167)

(This bond that exists through the beloved’s sidelong glance—can there be any distance of love between it and the lover’s heart?)

The term rābiṭa used in this couplet opens up a multilayered semantic field that points not merely to an emotional attachment, but also to the spiritual bond established in ṣūfīsm between disciple and master. In this way, the relationship between lover and beloved is redefined as a spiritual and continuous connection rather than a purely human contact.

The constant variability of love as a state is likewise framed within a mystical perspective in Neshāṭī’s ghazals. The increase and decrease in ardor under the assault of love (142), the heart’s sudden expansion or constriction (144), and the presentation of love as both calamity and solace (134) evoke the spiritual states known in ṣūfīsm as qabḍ (contraction) and basṭ (expansion). These contrasts indicate that love is not merely a pleasurable experience, but a divine process that transforms, unsettles, and ultimately refines the human being.

4.2. A Deliberate Strategy or a Poetic Deviation?

As demonstrated by the examples discussed earlier, Neshāṭī’s ghazals clearly display the coexistence of human love and divine love, at times even within the same poem. However, how and why this multilayered mode of expression is constructed in Neshāṭī’s poetry has not been addressed as an independent question in the existing literature. Although the permeability between metaphorical (majāzī) and true (ḥaqīqī) love has been discussed in the context of different periods and poets within the Islamic poetic tradition, the specific configuration of this relationship in the work of Neshāṭī—who was both a Mawlawī shaykh and a prominent representative of Sabk-i Hindī aesthetics—calls for a closer examination. Within this framework, the following question becomes central: does the juxtaposition of human and divine love in Neshāṭī’s poetry constitute a coincidental inconsistency, or is it a conscious expressive choice?

Various explanations may be proposed in response to this question. Reading all ghazals within a strictly ṣūfī interpretive framework, or interpreting the poems by assigning them to different phases of the poet’s life, may appear to offer plausible explanations. This article, however, approaches the coexistence of human and divine love not as a poetic deviation or inconsistency, but as a deliberately constructed expressive strategy operating within the formal rules of the ghazal as a genre.

Neshāṭī’s ghazals that engage with divine love and those that treat human love are not independent of each other. If some ghazals were devoted exclusively to divine love and others exclusively to human love, it might then be possible to argue that certain poems belonged to his youth while others were composed in a later, more mature phase of his life. However, the fact that both themes can be treated side by side within the same ghazal renders such a historical or developmental interpretation untenable. Accordingly, Neshāṭī’s juxtaposition of these two forms of love—what he himself terms true (ḥaqīqī) and metaphorical (majāzī) love—must be understood as a deliberate choice. But how can a poet articulate human love within a ghazal that expresses divine love, or conversely, articulate divine love within a ghazal that appears to describe human love?

This practice should be read as a consciously adopted strategy of expression through which Neshāṭī seeks to render the divine theme more powerfully than would be possible through straightforward narration. As noted earlier, Neshāṭī considers plain expression incapable of conveying the divine, the transcendent, a conviction he articulates by stating that “even the pen has bowed its head in shame.” To overcome this limitation of language, Neshāṭī draws upon the readily felt and easily grasped dimension of human love, thereby enabling him to articulate the transcendent with greater clarity and force.

For example, one ghazal opens with a couplet describing the lover as torn into a hundred pieces by the sword of love:

Shemshīr-i maḥabbatle ki ṣad pāre-i ʿıshquz

Mecrūḥ-ı sitem ʿāshıq-i pür-yāre-i ʿıshquz (155)

(By the sword of love we are shattered into a hundred pieces; we are the love-wounded lover, torn by the blows of affliction.)

After continuing with couplets that evoke human love, the poem concludes by stating that “we have drunk the wine of love in the house of sorrow of unity,” explicitly invoking waḥdat (oneness), a central ṣūfī concept denoting unity not as a state of serenity but as an affectively charged and paradoxical horizon of mystical experience, in its final line and thereby endowing the entire ghazal with a fully ṣūfī meaning.

Another ghazal begins with the depiction of the lover making his way to the beloved’s quarter in tears, then proceeds to describe his path as that of Farhād, emblematic of human love, and finally concludes with the following line, which signifies “we go to God by running toward grace”:

Teveccüh-i dili pūyān-ı feyḍ idüp shimdi

Cenāb-ı pāk-i Khudāvendigāre dek giderüz (158)

(Now, setting the heart’s orientation into motion toward grace, we hasten onward—until we reach the pure Presence of the Lord.)

When the ghazals of the Dīwān are considered as a whole, it becomes clear that many poems which initially appear to articulate human love acquire a religious and ṣūfī character through the addition of a divine theme. In this way, religious discourse is elevated beyond simple expression or mere emotional exuberance to a remarkably high level of intensity and force. The heightened expressive power that Neshāṭī’s ghazals attain through this method demonstrates both the coherence of his strategy and its effectiveness.

5. Conclusions

In the poems Neshāṭī composed in genres such as the qaṣīda, qıṭʿa, and mathnawī, he employs religious content in an explicit and unrestrained manner; by contrast, in his ghazals he offers dense depictions of worldly love and wine, while at times intertwining these depictions with ṣūfī concepts. This situation, evident in the poetry of Neshāṭī, a Mawlawī shaykh appointed to the Mawlawīhane of Edirne by the state, initially gives the impression of a clear paradox. This article argues, however, that this stylistic configuration is not a contradiction but a deliberate choice aimed at elevating religious experience to a higher and more effective poetic register.

Due to its formal structure, the qaṣīda is founded upon a direct, hierarchical, and hyperbolic language of praise. The ghazal, by contrast, offers an expressive field in which meaning is more ambiguous, associative power is stronger, and emotional impact is more intense. This aesthetic density emerges as a powerful poetic resource that enables religious experience to be articulated not through didactic exposition but through suggestion and aesthetic mediation. It is clear that Neshāṭī, as a Mawlawī shaykh, consciously exploits this resource.

In Neshāṭī’s ghazals, couplets that can be read as expressions of human love are transformed through their engagement with ṣūfī concepts such as the mirror, the secret, and fanāʾ fīʾllāh; in this way, the discourse in question acquires not only a religious but also a transcendent character. In this sense, the coexistence of human and divine love within the same ghazal signals neither inconsistency nor a loosening of religious discourse. On the contrary, this conjunction makes it possible for divine experience to be expressed in a more intense and aesthetically effective way.

When considered within this framework, the divine encounter in Neshāṭī’s poetry occurs not primarily through the explicit religious discourse of the qaṣīdas, but rather through an indirect and suggestive poetic language in the ghazals—one that draws upon the heightened emotional force of human love. By transcending the limits of overtly didactic expression, the poet turns the language of love into a vehicle for religious experience, thereby exploiting to the full the expressive possibilities of poetic discourse.

As noted above, this difference in expressive strategies across genres is not unique to Neshāṭī. In Perso-Ottoman poetry, many poets—including figures such as Ḥāfiẓ and Mawlānā—employ comparable strategies, whereby the ghazal and other poetic genres articulate religious meaning through different expressive registers. Yet the precise configuration of these strategies varies from poet to poet, depending on aesthetic preferences and intellectual horizons. The present study has sought to illustrate how this expressive logic operates in the specific case of Neshāṭī. More broadly, the ways in which religious meaning is distributed across genres in Persian and Ottoman poetry deserve further independent and comparative investigation.

Although Neshāṭī is a poet frequently cited within the Ottoman literary canon, he has hitherto been treated primarily within descriptive surveys, biographical studies, or as one component of multi-focused research. This article, by contrast, approaches Neshāṭī’s Dīwān as the poetic stage of religious experience, proposing a close reading that centers on the discursive divergence between the ghazal and non-ghazal genres. In doing so, it offers a new approach to reading Neshāṭī’s poetic world and invites a reconsideration of the classical field’s fundamental tensions, namely: truth versus metaphor, the profane versus the mystical, and the normative versus the non-normative.