SÜLEYMANİYE KÜTÜPHANESİ TERCÜMAN YAZMALARI 361 NUMARADA KAYITLI BİR MÜKEYYİFAT MÜNAZARASI
A MANUSCRIPT ON THE DEBATE OF PLEASURABLE SUBSTANCES REGISTERED AT NO. 361 IN THE TERCUMAN FOLDER OF THE SULEYMANIYE LIBRARY

Summary/Abstract: Literary debates constitute a very important genre in a very popular genre in Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literatures. They can be about the struggle for supremacy of opposite entities or concepts such as "night and day", "pen and sword", or "mind and love". The most original and most striking examples of this genre in Turkish literature – the origins date back to the Sumerians – are the competition debates about pleasurable substances try to claim and prove their superiority over each other with the help of identification and persistence arts. While many have been published, many more remain unpublished. In this article, we shall analyse one such a debate of pleasurable substances (Süleymaniye Library Tercuman Manuscripts No. 361). It talks about the how the “seven pleasure substances” (opium, berş, cannabis, boza, wine, mead, coffee) enter into a fierce competition in a mansion built in a vineyard called İşret-âbâd, to prove themselves as the best in the world. Coffee wins, however the debate finishes in peace.

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