Kadı Burhaneddin’in Düşünce Dünyasında Tasavvuf
Sufism in Qādī Burhaneddin’s World of Thought

Summary/Abstract: Qādī Burhaneddin, who died in 1358 at the age of 54 after living a stormy life, came out of many wars and distinguished as the most active name among Anatolian seigniors. He was called ‘the father of conquest’ because of this striking feature. Qādī Burhanuddin is a sharp-witted and fair scholar with dignity, tireless and never afraid to say the truth. Although he is said to be debauched and wassailer, he is mostly known for his kind-heartedness, cheerful nature, pleasant disposition, magnanimity, benevolence.and intimacy with the clergy. He became prominent in his struggle for the sake of Allah, took the plunge in this cause and gave away constantly in the service of God. Has adopted quite a close manner towards clergy and found great pleasure in conversing with them. He organized discussions with them three days a week, did not defect in respect of scholars visiting him and displayed just and compassionate relation with his community. Serving as a Qādī, he was a powerful figure belonging to the branch of ulema, and known for his mystical temper as well as jurisprudential mastery. When we examine his symbolic expression in poetry, we can see the depth of mystical meaning in many couplets that seem to be unsophisticated. Even not being a Sufi himself, Qādī Burhaneddin is prone to mysticism and closely affiliated with Sufis.SUMMARY: Qādī Burhanuddin saw mysticism as a relaxing element for the spirit and had to conceal himself due to his profession. Qādī Burhanuddin’s poems have an intimate and lively discourse which depicts the transience of the world, how lovers in God consider two worlds and the unity of beloved and lover, all simply reminding us that he was under the influence of Iranian Sufis.The frequent use of elements of beauty such as ‘hair, eyebrows, eyes, lips, waist, cupbearer and glass of wine’ reflects metaphorical meaning of words wrapped in the mystical sense. Sufism issues he dealt with are intertwined with the poet's imaginary lover and love of humanity. In his poetry, the length symbolizes qualification of worship, the concept of gracious reflects beauty and perfection, hair expresses multiplicity of worlds, curl means anything that detains lover of God in his path, lip represents being lost in God’s love, the concept cupbearer symbolizes the guide, wine expresses divine love, glass stands for the heart of lover, Ka’be means reunion, to become soil suggests humility, basil symbolizes cleaning the heart with austerity, lover expresses the passion for the Beauty and Glory of God, beloved means God, melody shows divine trance, vein means God’s attributes, eye tells the process of perfection, cheek expresses divine manifestation God’s light, beauty spot reflects the unseen world, chin symbolizes the difficulty of getting the secrets resulted during observation, waist reflects the subtleties of secrets and zephyr expresses enlightenment .According to Qādī Burhanuddin, enlightened people experience unity in multiplicity and cannot differentiate between day and night because they have a variable nature. Being enlightened requires being dust-choked in the way of God’s love. He likens love to the prophet Solomon, mind to Solomon's vizier Asaph and argues that saints follow love rather than mind as a guide in getting guidance and intellectual knowledge.By his recommendation ‘Never be fooled into the worldly happiness’, Qādī Burhanuddin claims that the world is an unfaithful friend since it converts peace and comfort into suffering and regret very soon. He likens worldly happiness to dreams which are interpreted with contrary expressions. Therefore, it is necessary to see the worldly pleasures as sorrows. The poet affirms that the entire world is worth of smell and everything in it points to ‘one God’ in reality.The poet introduces himself as a nightingale for his beloved and a rose for his friends as well as seeing himself junk and worthless before his beloved to whom he pays his only compliment as a poor dervish needy and bizarre. He mentions about how he gave help for mighty rulers in need and distress bravely because he was expected to distribute the enemy's power and strength though he became a dervish later on.According to Qādī Burhanuddin, the presence of the existence is relative and nothing more than a shadow. Hundreds of thousands of mistakes come out of human’s perception of the reality. People should melt their existence within nothing so that his imaginary presence can exist in both worlds. Knowledge has many gradations, so people should know the essence of their existence. Love is the ultimate fire that heats the heart.Qādī Burhanuddin made sincere prayer to God, stating the sadness of the multitude of sins, but never felt desperate of God’s mercy and always paid his compliment to Allah. He declares that God is the only Creator and accepts him with his good and bad deeds. He expresses a complete surrender to the fate determined by Allah. For him, no one can breathe unless God manifests his Will. Filled with divine love and honored with life and spiritual joy, souls become miserable when they obey their self-desires which cause forgetting the God and becoming distant from their own reality. The way of finding the truth is to save the soul from the hands of ego. The universe is filled with God's beauty, but we are unaware of this beauty

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