The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids (2 page)

     In order to determine the most likely candidate for authorship of the early sections, we
examined
the manuscript for clues.  Linguistically, we had little to go on
,
for an unknown translator had produced
our
English
copy
.  With
out
having access to the
original
manuscript
or knowing
,
with any certainty, what th
e author’s language
had been
,
the textual linguistics
gave us little useful information
.

    
Next
we
endeavored
to narrow down
the
period of time
within which
the work must
have been written.  This proved to be a far simpler task.  Although we have neither pinpointed the exact year when
Ports and Portals
first appeared in print, nor determined whether the Miskatonic University copy is the only version ever produced, we have made significant progress dating the manuscript.
 
Internal references – in particular, specific allusions to the death of Napoleon Bonaparte
indicate that the volume
was completed
after
1821. 
But
what of the author?

     The answer came in such an unusual way that I still laugh to think of it.  During a late-night work session, the girlfriend of one our graduate students – while looking over his shoulder at the first page
s
of the text – asked if ‘Ikhu’ was the author.  We had early on abandon
ed
this line of
inquiry, for ‘Ikhu’ is not an acknowledged name in any language known to our group; and, if a pseudonym, we had not found any other reference to it
in our research
.

    
However, in the process of explaining all of this to her, I realized what fools we had been.  I recalled
a few previous
encounter
s with author
s – particularly those who wished to protect their identities –
who
used
pseudonymous
abbreviations rather than
either their
full names or initials.
 
In this light, I wondered if ‘Ikhu’ might
be
a combination of abbreviations
,
drawn from
a given name and surname beg
inning
with the letters ‘Ik
’ and
‘
Hu’
, respectively.
  Several students
began to research along these lines, resulting in the
identifi
cation of
an excellent candidate: the obscure Turkish poet Ikraam Huda (1789?-1827).

     Of Huda’s early
life
little is known. 
H
is name is almost certainly a pseudonym, for it consists of two Arabic given names that, taken together, mean ‘rightly guided honor.’  Fortunately,
many
of Huda’s
other
work
s have
been published
, for
he was
not entirely unknown
in his own time.  As such, we found plenty of material from which to derive our conclusions.

     The facts – s
uch as we have them – are these:
Ikraam
Huda was born in the Caucasus region of Turkey, the son of a mid-level official who served in the administration of Selim III until the sultan was deposed
(1807)
and assassinated
(1808).
  As a
child
Huda
traveled throughout the
empire with his father, learning various languages and developing an affinity for local cultures.
 
In the final years before the death of Selim III,
Huda
briefly collected a government salary as a poet. 

    
This
position
might have
come through
the influence of his father, although it
should be noted
that the sultan was a renowned
supporter
of the arts
, having already been a friend and patron to Galib Dede, a poet whose works
greatly influenced Huda
.
[1]
  We can do little but speculate about the motivation of Selim III
, for n
either
Huda’s works
nor the
official documents of the period bring further clarity to the issue.

    
Ikraam Huda
does not again appear in the historical record in an official sense until the publication of his first collection of poems,
Earlie Days in the Light
(1816).  The following is an excerpt from “Empty Lands”, a typical poem from this volume:

From
the
hand of God

C
omes the north
ern
wind
,

To g
rac
e the
herdsm
e
n,

H
ead and heart.

From the distant hills

Comes the
child un-sinned
,

To c
leans
e the pure

W
ith ancient art.

In
Earlie
Days
Huda establis
hed the
style
for which he would become known:
a combination of ethereal imagery and social commentary, most often using the common man as his subject.
  Both
of these creative tendencies
owed much to the influence of the mystical
and
often allegorical narrative poems (
mesnevi
) of Galib Dede.
[2]

    
Within
Huda’s
work
there
are tantalizing but inconclusive
hints as to the
poet’s
theolog
y
.  H
e
frequently refers to God as a conscious and active entity.  It would be logical to assume that the poet –
a Turk
whose
father
was
in service to the sultan – was a Muslim.  However, of the few Huda poems that we could find in Arabic, none
mention
a supreme being
.  As such,
we cannot be sure whether the poet specifically used the term ‘Allah’ rather than ‘God’ in his works
prior to translation
.  As such, we can
only
speculate
about
his specific religious beliefs.

    Huda’s poetry appeared in two other collections after the publication of
Earlie Days in the Light
.  These
were:
Verses
(1818), a compilation of two hundred poems by more than a dozen Turkish writers
,
to which Huda contributed twenty-eight short works; and
What Remains Unseen
(1828), a nearly complete
collection of Huda’s poetry, published posthumously on the first anniversary of the artist’s death.  In the latter volume, the works are chronological, although several items from
Earlie Days
are omitted
without explanation.

     Readers might recognize
an
oft-printed stanza from
What Remains Unseen
,
the concluding lines of
his
stunning poem, “Burning Wings”, an epic and detailed depiction of the Battle of Navarino (1827):

So
flared
the points of dæmon light,

Their smokie
eyes
far
-
gazing
,

Upon the sea that fateful night,

A western fire blazing;

M
aking ash
of
all we know
,

F
or
today and
for
tomorrow.

This haunting 134-line poem,
apparently
written from a sickroom
overlook
ing
the famous naval
skirmish
, was Huda’s last creative effort.  Suffering from ch
olera, the poet succumbed to his
illness four days after the defeat of the Turkish navy at Navarino
.
[3]
Huda’s death created a minor sensation in Turkey.  However, w
hile
the newspapers of the day
covered the
poet’s
passing
in
great detail
, there is no record of his burial.

     “Burning Wings” established Huda’s reputation
(posthumously)
as an eloquent observer of life.  The work accurately depicts the historic battle while
also painting
a
somewhat
prophetic
portrait of
the changing world of the Ottoman Empire.  In particular, Huda recognized the rising dominance of western culture, an influence that would
sweep across
Turkey with the
establishment in 1839 of
Sultan Mahmud II
’s Tanzimat reforms
,
through which European-style government, industry, and dress became the laws of the land.

     Interestingly, with the exception of “Burning Wings
,
” which has been re-printed widely in Arabic, few examples of Huda’s work appear outside of
Earlie Days in the Light
,
Verses
, and
What Remains Unseen
.  Even more telling, none of these three volumes
have
been found in any
language
other than
English
; eac
h
was
published by the un
identified
“R.C. Pubs
.
”

    
T
he text of
The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids
offers other
clues which
point to
Ikraam
Huda as its author.  In particular, material in Chapters 5 and 10 indicate that the writer
of the manuscript
– who is a poet according to his own words – spent five years among the Zelaznids
in what is now northern Iran
.  The official record shows no known activity for Huda between 1808 and 1816, leaving plenty of time for a five-year stint with the Zelaznids.

    
The resulting facts are these
: 1) every
known
volume containing the works of
Ikraam
Huda was
published by the same publisher as
The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids
; 2)
Ikraam
Huda
’s
career
fits within the time period of the material covered in
Ports and Portals
, including the five years
the
author
claims to have s
pent with the Zelaznids; 3) the form and focus of
Ports and Portals
corresponds to the
style and
interests of
Ikraam
Huda
.
  Conclusion:
although he does not use
the abbreviation
“
Ikhu
” in
any other
known work
,
Ikraam
Huda is almost certainly the primary author of
The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids
.

     As to why Huda used this
pseudonym for
Ports and Portals
but no other works, we can only speculate.
 
Certainly
the subject matter was
controversial
in its day
, if the material in the text is to be believed, with
the Zelaznids constantly
hounded by various
authorities.  Chapter 10
, for instance,
indicates that
Ottoman officials knew of the
existence
of the Zelaznids
and
specifically
sought to
either arrest or
destroy them.  It is, therefore, possible that Huda
used the pseudonym as insulation
against
either
ridicule or arrest.