When looking through the history of thought, we came across the

deliverance that "the essence of universe consists of Jetters and numbers" .The history

of this thought goes back to Pitagoras.This thought which affected the several cultures

since then, had made impression on the Islamic Culture too. Therefore letters have also

been dealt with in our mistican and literary culture for different purposes such as "the

HurGfi sect", Ebced calculation(giving numbers to the letters),coding, abbreviaiton,

vefk, talisman and remil. Also letters have been materials for literary arts !ike acrostic

poems , muvaşşah and letter games. Nowadays, The Jetters and numbers are used more

commonly as symbols.It is understood that letters were dealt with various meanings in

the past. The style that is dealt with appears with poems known as "Elifname". The

physician Nidai from Ankara, who is one of the poets of the sixteenth century(l508-

l 568)had a mas na vi book (book with poems made up of rhymed couplets, each couplet

being of a different rhyme) known as "Genc-i Esrar-ı Ma' ni".In his book there was an

Elifname ( a type of poeın) with the tittle of "Der Beyan- ı I:Iurfif-ı Tehecci".In this

paper while looking for the ıneaning of Elifnaıne, the poeın ınentioned above will be

introduced as an example to Elifname in addition.

Key Words: Elifname, Nidai, Genc-i Esrar-ı Ma' ni.