When Organs Begin to Talk: Debate of Organs in Hebrew and Turkish Literatures and Receb Vahyî’s The Debate of Human Organs

Abstract

There are many texts in the world literature in which the organs are personified and discussed with each other. Four works, three in Hebrew and one in Turkish, were identified entrated the supremacy battle of organs to each other. The first of these passes in Midrash Tehillim (IX-XIth century CE). The second and third ones belong to Abraham Ibn Ezra and Yom Tov Soriano who both lived in Spain in the XIIth and XVth centuries CE, respectively. The last one is Münâzara-i A‘zâ-yı Beşer (The Debate of Human Organs) published firstly in a special issue of Tercümân-ı Hakîkat and Servet-i Fünûn journals in 1895/6 and then in Cerîde-i Sûfiyye in 1914 by an Ottoman soldier, Receb Vahyî. In this article, the fables, which is the probable source of the idea of personification of organs, has been examined. Then the debates have been introduced and compared with each other in terms of form and content. Finally, Vahyî’s work has been published. As a result of analysing, it has been seen that the aim of writing were an important element in achieving the originality. It has been explained that how achieve originality the same theme works due to their different writing aims as well as how resemble the works each other because of their same writing purpose even if they were written in different linguistic, religious and cultural geographies.