Every one of the five lines of this Hüseynî hymn's refrain ends with "illallah", and it is written in a metre of nine beats. It is the first of the eleven pieces collected from the voice of Hacı Asiye Akbaş, a mevlid chanter of Amasya, and its notation was published in 2015 in the appendices of the article in which Fatih Koca introduced this woman singer. Both the words and the music are shown as anonymous on the score.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not in the TRT repertoire
  • Source person: Hacı Asiye Akbaş (born 1951 in Çiviköy, in the Gediksaray subdistrict then attached to Göynücek; mevlid chanter); Ayşe Candaş, who was with her at the collection, also joined in the singing (the article calls her in one place her elder sister, in another her younger sister)
  • Collected by: Osman Akbaş and Fatih Koca, according to the heading of the score
  • Notated by: Eren Köksal (revising the collected hymns)
  • Place and date of collection: Amasya; according to the article, during Koca's interview with Asiye Akbaş, which the footnotes date to the Ramadan Bayram of 2013
  • Genre: ilahi (hymn)
  • Makam: Hüseynî
  • Metre and tempo: 9/8; on the score crotchet = 70
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source publication: Fatih Koca, Rast Müzikoloji Dergisi 3(2), 2015: list of works p. 937, score p. 939
  • Location in the archive: the article does not say where the field recording is kept; the only published documents are the score and the words
  • Link: there is no TRT link; the article

Lyrics

Okuyalım Kur'an'ı
İsmi güzel Allah'ın
Kıymetini bilelim
Yüce Kerim Allah'ım

Allah'ımın adıdır illallah
O Rabbimin adıdır illallah
Ağzımızın tadıdır illallah
Mühüründe yazılıdır illallah
Sancağında asılıdır illallah

Daim olsun haberin
Kur'an olsun rehberin
Ne büyük bir mucize
Bu Kur'an peygamberi

"Illallah" is the last part of the profession of faith, "lâ ilâhe illallah" (there is no god but God); the hymn calls it the name of God and finds it in a different place in each line: in the taste in our mouths, in the writing on the seal, on the banner. The stanzas speak more plainly: the first calls on us to read the Qur'an and to value the fair name of God ("Let us read the Qur'an, / the fair name of God, / let us know its worth, / my exalted, generous God"); the second wishes the listener that the Qur'an be his guide ("May word of you be lasting, / may the Qur'an be your guide, / what a great miracle, / this prophet of the Qur'an"). "Kur'an peygamberi" in the last line is given as spelled on the score; it refers to the prophet who brought the Qur'an.

Story

There is no story of the hymn's making, nor is it known in which period or from whose hand it came. What Koca records is the tradition that carried it. Asiye Hanım would add hymns between the sections of the mevlid at gatherings, choosing them according to the occasion: a birth, a death, a soldier's or a bride's mevlid, the send-off of a pilgrim. She kept the hymns in memory without writing them down; as she grew older she regretted those she had forgotten and copied some of those that remained into a hymn notebook of her own. The article does not say at which gatherings this particular hymn was sung.

Musical Features

The score consists of nine bars and falls into two parts. The first four bars carry the four-line stanza; the refrain begins with the repeat sign in the fifth bar, and each bar takes one "illallah" line. The score sets only the first stanza and the refrain to the melody; the second stanza, beginning "Daim olsun haberin", is given at the foot of the page as words alone, and there is a return sign in the last bar. Both parts end on the note A (dügâh), the final of Hüseynî. The staff carries a single sharp (F), and the tempo is given as crotchet = 70. Five of the eleven pieces in Koca's list are in Hüseynî; this hymn stands at the head of that group.

Performers and Recordings

Asiye Akbaş helped correct the hymns collected in the region for Amasya Municipality's album "İlahi Anadolu Amasya İlahileri"; Koca keeps the eleven pieces he collected from her apart from these and presents them as "newly collected". The first collection of Amasya hymns had been made by the composer Burhan Özbakır. The only published source for this hymn is Koca's score; no other sound recording of it is documented. The folk songs, long songs and religious melodies of the province are the subject of the article The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources