Ali Bâkî Gül was an Alevi-Bektashi folk and dervish-lodge (tekke) poet of the first half of the twentieth century. He served as imam in the village of Harız, today called Gümüştepe, in the district of Merzifon, wrote his poems in Arabic-script notebooks and died in this village in 1956. His link with Amasya is disputed as regards his birthplace. Yusuf Turan Günaydın, who gathered information from the poet's son Muhsin Gül, writes that he was born in Harız in 1897, and present-day studies mostly accept this view. Some anthologies, on the other hand, show him as born in the Hacıbektaş district of Nevşehir, and another source in the Tarsus district of Mersin. The sources agree, however, that he spent most of his life in Harız and that he died and was buried there. On this page the poet's life and works are described, and the differing views on his birthplace are given in a separate section, with the source on which each rests.

His Life

According to the information Hasan Kaplan and Büşra Esmer give on Günaydın's authority, Ali Bâkî was born on 7 January 1897. His mother Hatice Hanım died when he was twelve. His father was Yusuf Sıdkî Baba, a well-known figure in Alevi-Bektashi circles who wrote poetry under the pen name (mahlas) "Pervane". Sıdkî Baba had joined the Hacıbektaş lodge during the time of Feyzullah Efendi as its head (postnişin), studied in the lodge's madrasa at his encouragement and received a Bektashi training along with the religious sciences. Little is known about Ali Bâkî's education; his real teacher was his father, at whose side he was trained for thirty-one years. He went with his father on some of his journeys and increased his knowledge and experience at the Hacıbektaş lodge, which he visited often. The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature), however, states that he was educated at the Hacı Bektaş lodge, where his father was also a teacher, and that he joined the Bektashi order. He played the çöğür and the cura among stringed instruments and the violin among bowed ones; he also took his lessons in poetry from his father.

He is said to have begun writing poetry at seventeen. According to his son Muhsin Gül, the young Ali Bâkî went with Çelebi Cemaleddin Efendi to visit his father, who was in Sivas, and there Çelebi Efendi asked him whether he too wrote devotional songs (deyiş) like his father. When Ali Bâkî replied, "If you grant me your blessing, I will write", Çelebi Efendi answered, "The blessing lies beneath the effort; make the effort", and encouraged him to write. Soon afterwards, too shy to show the song he had written in front of his father, he presented it to Çelebi Efendi at a moment when his father had left the room; on reading the poem Çelebi Efendi laughed and said to Sıdkî Baba as he came back in, "Sıdkı, your son is going to surpass you." In his first poems he used the pen name "Bâkî", and later adopted the pen name "Ali Bâkî" lest he be confused with Bâkî, the great poet of the sixteenth century.

According to the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, the poet married at the end of the First World War, settled with his father in the village of Harız when the dervish lodges were closed in 1925, and after his father's death served for many years as the village imam. Kaplan and Esmer also write that, like his father, he served as imam in Harız. Besides the imamate he earned his living through tailoring and carpentry, which he had learned in the army, and during the Second World War he was assigned to give civil defence courses to the public. According to a note he made in his poetry notebook, he was called up for guard service in 1945, took over the seventh post in the village of İmret on 1 August 1945 and spent three months there writing reports at the telephone. He married Safiye Hanım, of a dede (Alevi spiritual guide) lineage from the same village, and had by this marriage daughters named Cemile, Hatice and Zeynep and sons named Muhsin, Cemil, Hadi and Hulusi. When he fell ill in 1955 he went to his son Muhsin Gül, who was working in Adana, and returned to his village after treatment. It is recorded that twenty-two days before his death he gave up all his work, wishing to spend the time left to him reading and writing, and that his last poem bears the date 2 December 1956. He died in Harız on 24 December 1956 and was buried above the village in the courtyard of the shrine called Göğce Dede.

There are three separate views on Ali Bâkî Gül's birthplace. The Harız view rests on Yusuf Turan Günaydın's article "Amasyalı Bir Bektaşî Şairi Ali Bâkî Gül ve Balık Destanı" (A Bektashi Poet from Amasya, Ali Bâkî Gül, and the Fish Epic), published in 2008. Günaydın gathered his information from the poet's son Muhsin Gül, and for this reason both Şebnem Şerife Ördek, author of the entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, and Kaplan and Esmer accept that his birthplace was the village of Harız in Merzifon. The Hacıbektaş view appears in Asım Bezirci's Türk Halk Şiiri (1993) and İsmail Özmen's Alevi-Bektaşi Şiirleri Antolojisi (1998). The Tarsus view rests on Emir Kalkan's book XX. Yüzyıl Türk Halk Şairleri (1991).

An explanation can be found for each of these views. Since the poet's father had been trained at the Hacıbektaş lodge and taught there, it is natural that the family should have lived in Hacıbektaş for a time and that the poet should be linked with it; the information the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü gives on Bezirci's authority, that the family settled in Harız when the lodges were closed in 1925, seems to support this view. This assessment is ours. By contrast, the life story Kaplan and Esmer relate on the authority of Altınok and Günaydın says that the poet spent his life in Harız, the village of his birth. That at the end of the table of contents of his poetry notebook in the National Library Ali Bâkî introduces himself as "Merzifon'un Harız köyünden Sıdkî Hâce-zâde Ali Bâkî Gül" (Ali Bâkî Gül, son of Sıdkî Hâce, of the village of Harız in Merzifon) is also a document showing in his own hand his tie with Harız; but this phrase states the village where he lived and to which he belonged rather than his birthplace. The basis of the Tarsus view is not explained in the sources.

The sources differ on other details as well. On Bezirci's authority the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü writes that the poet's son Hamdullah Gül was also a poet like him; in the list of children Kaplan and Esmer quote from Altınok, however, this name does not appear. There are also two accounts concerning the pen name: according to Altınok the poet changed his pen name himself, while according to the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü the pen name "Ali Bâkî" was given to him by his father. These differences show that what is known of the poet's life rests largely on family memory and on short notes in anthologies. In the end, Ali Bâkî Gül's link with Amasya is certain through his having spent most of his life in the village of Harız in Merzifon, served there as imam, and died and been buried there; that he was born in Amasya is information handed down by the family and most widely accepted today, but not shared by other sources.

His Poetry and Works

Copyright note: Since Ali Bâkî Gül died on 24 December 1956, his poems remain under copyright protection for seventy years after his death, that is, until the end of 2026. For this reason his poems cannot be published on this site as separate pages, and only a short quotation is given below. When the term of protection expires, his poems will be published, each on its own page, as with the other poets.

Most of Ali Bâkî's poems bear the general features and symbols of dervish-lodge literature; their religious and mystical side predominates. Besides these, the poems he wrote in the minstrel (âşık) manner are also judged successful. Because he was devoted to tea and tobacco he wrote eulogies of the samovar as well as advice and satires on the harm of smoking; it is told that he wrote poems even on the papers of the Köylü and Ulus cigarettes he smoked. The social hardships of the years he lived through also entered his poetry: he wrote many epics (destan) on the shortages of tea, coffee, sugar and paraffin, the black market, irregularities in grain purchases, corruption and bribery, and on earthquakes and floods. His diction is sincere and plain, and he makes little use of foreign words.

The two works identified so far are the Divan-ı Ali Bâkî and the Yeni Doğan Mevlid-i Şerif. Baki Yaşa Altınok published his divan, bringing together the poems in various poetry notebooks, under the title Sıdkî Baba'nın Oğlu Ali Bâkî Gül Baba Dîvânı (Ankara 2017). Sedat Kardaş introduced the mevlid, written in 1951, with a study. Altınok reports that other poems are found in various notebooks as well: among them are "Cenab-ı Hakk'ın Ruhlar ile Tekellümü ve Ruhların Ahd ü Misâkı", "Dört Kapı Kırk Makam", "Hacı Bektaş Velî'nin Osman Gazi'ye Himmeti", "Çelebi Cemalettin ve Veliyeddin Efendilerin Vatana Hizmetleri", "Ehl-i Beyt Sevgisi" and "Cem İbadeti".

There is also a 132-page poetry notebook in the poet's own hand, written in ta‘lik script, registered in the National Library under no. 06 Mil Yz A 5302. The notebook contains poems such as a mevlid, a mi‘râciye (poem on the Prophet's Ascension), the story of Joseph, the tales of the People of the Elephant and the Companions of the Cave, a poem on the Twelve Imams (düvazdeh imam), the life of his father Sıdkî Hoca, and songs he recited in the presence of Sheikh Feyzullah Efendi. Of these, the "Kıssa-i Ashâb-ı Kehf" (Tale of the Companions of the Cave) was published in full by Kaplan and Esmer in 2023. This 140-couplet mesnevi, written in the eleven-syllable pattern of syllabic metre, is notable for having been composed in Arabic script in the Republican era. The poet introduces the city in which the tale takes place as Tarsus:

Bir şehir var aña derlerdi Efsûs
Şimdi maʿlûm söylenir aña Ṭarsûs

In English: There was a city they called Ephesus; now, as is known, it is called Tarsus. At the end of the mesnevi the poet advises the reader to pray, not to fall into heedlessness and to attach himself to a spiritual guide, and speaks his pen name holding himself up as an example:

ʿAlî Bâḳî gibi ġaflet çulunu
Bürünüp şaşırma Ḥaḳḳıñ yolunu

In English: Do not wrap yourself in the cloak of heedlessness like Ali Bâkî and lose the way of God. Since the poet died in 1956, his poems are still under copyright protection; for this reason only these two couplets are given here as examples, and no separate pages have been opened for his poems. For his poems as a whole, readers may consult Altınok's edition of the divan and the article by Kaplan and Esmer.

Chronology

1897: According to Günaydın, born on 7 January in the village of Harız (Gümüştepe) in Merzifon; according to some sources his birthplace is Hacıbektaş or Tarsus.

1925: According to the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, settles in Harız with his father when the dervish lodges are closed.

1945: Called up for guard service; on 1 August takes over the seventh post in the village of İmret.

1951: Writes the Yeni Doğan Mevlid-i Şerif.

1955: Falls ill and goes for treatment to Adana, to his son Muhsin Gül.

1956: Writes his last poem on 2 December; dies in Harız on 24 December and is buried at the Göğce Dede shrine.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Baki Yaşa Altınok, Sıdkî Baba'nın Oğlu Ali Bâkî Gül Baba Dîvânı, Ankara: Helke Yayıncılık, 2017 (as cited by Kaplan-Esmer 2023).

Academic studies

  • Hasan Kaplan, Büşra Esmer, "Cumhuriyet Devrinde Arap Harfleriyle Yazılmış Bir Mesnevi: Ali Baki Gül'ün Ashâb-ı Kehf Kıssası", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi, 9(19), 2023, pp. 52-97. https://doi.org/10.28981/hikmet.1327818
  • Yusuf Turan Günaydın, "Amasyalı Bir Bektaşî Şairi Ali Bâkî Gül ve Balık Destanı", Türk Kültürü ve Hacı Bektaş Veli Araştırma Dergisi, 45, 2008, pp. 155-164 (as cited by Kaplan-Esmer 2023 and Ördek).
  • Sedat Kardaş, "1951 Yılında Yazılmış Bir Mevlid: Ali Bakî'nin Yeni Tulû'ât-ı Mevlûdü'n-Nebî'si", Anemon Muş Alparslan Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 6(4), 2018, pp. 503-510 (as cited by Kaplan-Esmer 2023).

Books

Online sources