Muhammed b. İbrahim’in Manzûm Şir’atü’l-İslam Tercümesi (Şir’a-i Manzûm)

Muhammad b. Ibrahim is a poet who lived in the 15th and 16th centuries. His only work which we could reach is Shir‘a-i Manzūm. It was translated from Shir‘at al-Islām in-to Turkish in 911/1505. Shir‘at al-Islām is a book of ilmihal (catechism) and ethics writ-ten in Arabic by famous Hanafī scholar Imāmzadāh (d. 573/1177). It was very popular in Ottoman society and among scholars. In the first part of this article, the commentaries and translations of Shir‘at al- Islām are introduced. In the second and third parts, there is content review of Shir‘a-i Manzūm and Muhammad b. Ibrahim’s translation methods. The longest poetic ilmihal (catechism) in Turkish Literature, Shir‘a-i Manzūm is consists of 8442 couplets. The work, which was written in form of the mathnawī, was dedicated to the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II (1481–1512). At the end of the Los Angeles copy of Shir‘a-i Manzūm, it is stated that the poet was from Eceabat. Muham-mad b. Ibrahim, who could write poetry in Arabic and Persian besides Turkish, skill-fully used derivations, synonymous and puns in his work. Along with adhering to the source, he reflected his contributions to his work. There are also translations of many Qur’ān verses and hadiths in Shir‘a-i Manzūm which is included in the religious group of mathnawīs.The 15th and 16th centuries are considered as the golden age of the mathnawī type in Turkish Literature. During these centuries many different religious-mystical and moral mathnawī have been written. The translation made by Muhammad b. Ibrahim under the name of Shir‘a-i Manzūm is one of these mathnawīs. There is no information about the literary personality of the poet. All the opinions mentioned in our article about his poetics are based on Shir‘a-i Manzūm. It is understood from his work that Muhammad b. Ibrahim received a good madrasa education as well as his poetry skills. Shir‘a-i Manzūm has a simple wording and the characteristics of Old Anatolian Turkish. The wording of the work is very similar to the other mathnawīs written in its period. Süleymān Çelebī’s Wasīlat al-Najāt; Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed’s Muhammadiya, İbrahim Tennūri’s Gulzār-ı Ma‘nawī, Hamdullah Hamdi’s Mawlīd, Zaīfī’s Majma‘u al-Anvār, Dāvud-ı Halvetī’s Gulshan-i Tawhīd are similar mathnawīs belonging to that period. Since Shir‘a-i Manzūm is a religious-didactic work, the translator used a clear wording. Since Shir‘at al-Islām, which is the source of Shir‘a-i Manzūm, was written in Arabic in Bukhara in the 12th century, it co