Abstract

With the acceptance of Islam by the Turks, works on Islam have been copyrighted in Turkish literature. It has become a tradition to express the desire to attain the mercy of Allah and the intercession of Prophet Muḥammad, especially in the sections of tawhid, naat, munajat and hatime in these works. Over time, verse and prose detached works, which are about intercession and asking for intercession from people whom Allah has allowed to intercede, especially Prophet Muḥammad, have been compiled. These works were separated from the religious-mystical genres and named as şefāʿat-nāme. In general, the şefāʿat-nāme texts are similar to the religious stories such as Ḥikāye-i Kesikbaş, Ḥikāye-i Deve, Ḥikāye-i Güvercin, Ḥikāye-i Geyik, Ḥikāye-i Ḳız, Ḥikāye-i ʿĪsā, Ḥikāye-i Ismāʿīl ve Ḥikāye-i Ibrāhīm, which was written in the old Anatolian Turkish period, in terms of narration and style. One of these stories, which was written in plain Turkish in order to teach the religion of Islam to the public, and in which the narration is at the forefront, is the Şefāʿat- nāme-i Yaḥyā, which we consider a type of intercession due to its content. This work, which is the subject of our study, is on pages 155a-160a of the manuscript, which is registered with the inventory number 4042 in the Manuscript Donations Department of the Süleymāniye Library and contains Süleymān Çelebī’s Wasīlat al-Najāt and many verse stories with religious content that were copyrighted in the Old Anatolian Turkish period. Şefāʿat-nāme-i Yaḥyā is written in the form of aruz prosody “fāʿilātün / fāʿilātün / fāʿilün” and in the form of mathnavī verse. In this work, which consists of 154 couplets, Prophet Muḥammad was sad and weeping for the sinful ummah, and asking Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿOthmān, ʿAlī, ʿĀyşe and Fāṭima, who were in his conversation at that time, what they would do to intercede. In this article, first of all, information about intercession is given. Then, the language, form, expression and content features of Şefāʿat-nāme-i Yaḥyā are examined. Afterwards, Yaḥyā’s Şefāʿat-nāme ʿUmaroghlu’s Şefāʿat-nāme, Pir Muḥammad’s Şefāʿat-nāme and Şefāʿat-nāme, which is located between leaves 30a-34a of the manuscript registered in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Y. Y. 520/2, are compared. It has been tried to reveal how the same plot is expressed in the pen of different poets through a table. At the end of the article, the transcribed text of Şefāʿat-nāme-i Yaḥyā is prepared and presented to the researchers.