The Caliph and the Layabout
A Translation from a Short Ottoman-Turkish Story (or, at least, an Attempt at a Translation)
It has been some time since I published something on this site for the last time. Not to worry, I have been rather active in trying to learn a new language while appearing inactive to my dear readership. This new language I have been dabbling in is Ottoman Turkish, and now follows my first attempt at a translation of a short story in that literary language that I gladly share with you. The translated story can be found in this book that can be (partly) accessed through Google Books here. It has been provided with the German title “Der Kaliph und der Tagedieb,” I believe you can find it rather easily via the link already provided. First I will present you with the transcription-cum-transliteration of the text in Ottoman Turkish, after which you will see the short story’s full translation. The translation may read as if it were awkwardly done at time, not (only) because of my writing skills in (literary) English, but (also) on account of me trying to remain as close to the Ottoman Turkish modes of expression as I can be without compromising (in my opinion) too much of the intelligibility of the translated text. Again, you can see some footnotes below, in most of which I try to explain what I believe to be the meaning or context of some (trickier, perhaps still misunderstood by me) sentences or phrases.
Transcription/Transliteration1
Bir gün bir Aʿrābī Meʾmūn Ḫalīfeye gelüb dėdi ki “yā Emīrü l-müʾminīn Ḥacc ėtmeğe ʿazīmet eyledim, lākın aḳçem yoḳdır.” - dėdi. Meʾmūn Ḫalīfe cevāb ėtdi ki “çünki aḳçeñ yoḳdır saña Ḥacc ėtmek farż değildir; nāfile yere niçün zaḥmet çekersin?” deyince, Aʿrābī ėtdi “yā Emīrü l-müʾminīn, yoḳluḳdan şikāyat ėdüb Ḥacc ėtsem gerek aḳçem yoḳdır deyü nezākat eyledim! senden iḥsān umīd ėderim sen ise baña mesāʾil şerʿīye beyān ėdüb Ḥaccıñ vujūbını naḳl ėdersin dėdikde Meʾmūn Ḫalīfeye Aʿrābīniñ bu ẓarāfetinden ġāyet ḥaẓẓ ėdüb ʿaẓīm inʿām ve iḥsān eyledi.
Translation
One day a Bedouin came up to Caliph Ma’mūn and said: “O Commander of the Faithful, I have set out on Ḥajj (pilgrimage), but I have no money.” Caliph Ma’mūn responded: “Since you have no money it is not a religious duty to go on the Ḥajj; why would you go through all this trouble to reach a place you are not obliged to visit?” Thereupon the Bedouin said: “O Commander of the Faithful, now that I have complained about my lack of funds and I do not have the money that I would need, were I to go on Ḥajj, I have (in fact) performed an act of kindness!2 I hope (to receive) some benevolence from you, namely that you would make a statement on legalities for my sake and assume the religious duty of going on Ḥajj (which I cannot fulfill).”3 Caliph Ma’mūn, upon hearing those words, was very delighted by the Bedouin’s ingeniousness, and performed splendid acts of charity and acts of benevolence.4
The method of conversing Arabic/Persian letters into letters of the Roman alphabet (with and without diacritics used here, which constitutes in fact partly a transcription, partly a transliteration, is the same as the one used in the Ottoman Turkish grammar book and learner Korkut BUGDAY, Osmanisch: Einführung in die Grundlagen der Literatursprache, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1999. Added note: Additional punctuation marks besides the full stops, such as the quotation marks, comma’s, etc., have been added by the author of this post while these are absent in the Ottoman Turkish original.
See the following notes below. I believe that the Bedouin here states that his proposal, which hinges upon the given that he cannot perform the Ḥajj, is in fact also religiously and ethically beneficial for the Caliph himself: He can help the Bedouin by reassuring him that performing the Ḥajj would not be necessary in his position, whilst also performing good acts to offset the Bedouin’s failure to complete his pilgrimage, which would also reflect good on the Caliph in Allah’s eyes. Both figures in this story therefore find themselves in a win-win situation thanks to the Bedouin’s visit and his assertion that he has no money for the pilgrimage.
This sentence was a bit difficult for me to understand, but I think it may be interpreted as follows: The Bedouin is here asking the Caliph to formally enshrine the absolution of his obligation to perform the Ḥajj by means of a statement, or declaration, that the Caliph is to issue. If the Caliph indeed does issue such a declaration, however, he apparently has to offset the Bedouin’s discontinuation of his Ḥajj (the verb here used ‘naḳl ėtmek’ may mean in general ‘to transfer’ or ‘to convey,’ but I think here it would be best to understand it as ‘to take over’ or ‘to assume’) by doing good.
It seems that the Caliph’s good acts done on behalf of the Bedouin (as well as on behalf of himself, see my comment on the “win-win situation” in the second footnote above!) did not include performing the Ḥajj for the sake of the Bedouin, but consisted of charitable deeds of some other kind. What I do not understand, however, is why the title given to this story in the German collection of stories in Ottoman Turkish is “Der Kaliph und der Tagedieb” (translated as “The Caliph and the Layabout”): It suggests that the Bedouin appearing in this story is merely loafing about without providing any productive or wholesome “input” in the story, whereas the Bedouin as presented in the story might be a bit more cunning than one could discern from the story (he could, for instance, have had money contrary to what he said to the Caliph, who knows?), he did provide the impetus for good deeds done by the Caliph.
