FEREC BA'DE'Ş-ŞİDDE

Abstract

Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde is the common name for a collection of anonymous folk tales in the style of the "Bin Bir Gece Masalları" in ancient Arabic literature. Its meaning is expressed as "attaining happiness after suffering". In the course of the history of the Turkish language, starting from the 13th century until the 16th century and within the time period called "Old Anatolian Turkish" or "Old Turkish Turkish", Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde is one of the most widely read works translated from Arabic literature into Turkish literature and widely read among the people. The translation of Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde, an anonymous story of Arabic literature into Turkish, appears in three different versions. The first of these is the translation from Persian by Kasım b. Mehmed, which consists of 42 stories. This translation is characterized in the literature as Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde translated from Arabic into Persian and from Persian into Turkish and is called the "Persian version". It is known that there are many manuscripts of this version in domestic and foreign libraries. The second version is the translation of the 14 chapters of Tenuhi or Ebi'd-Dünya by Lutfullah b. Hasan et-Tokadî (Molla Lutfî). There is no publication on this translation to date. The third version is the translation of 13 chapters by Mehmed b. Ömer El-Halebî, which we have given the full text of in this book, translated directly from Arabic into Turkish. This third version of Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde is the manuscript registered in the Macar Bilimler Akademisi Şarkıyat Kütüphanesi under the title "TÖRÖK, Qu 5". Another known copy of this manuscript is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (no. 383-384). The manuscript of Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde, which we are preparing for publication, bears the date of its composition as Şevval (Shawwal) 842/1438 and is the oldest manuscript among its counterparts. This version, translated directly from Arabic into Turkish, is organized into 13 chapters and consists of approximately 180 different stories. In this respect, it has a different content from its counterparts.