Âşık Musa Aslan was a folk minstrel who was born in Ardahan, trained at the Hacıbektaş lodge, settled in Merzifon in 1925 and lived there until his death. He holds an important place in the minstrel tradition of the region that takes in Merzifon, Suluova and Gümüşhacıköy, known locally as Gaziler Ovacığı. Today his name lives on above all through nine folk songs that were collected from him as a source person and entered the Turkish folk music repertoire of TRT. He is the man who appears as "Âşık Musa" among the minstrels of the region listed in the site's article on the minstrel tradition in Amasya.

Life

His date of birth is not known with certainty. According to Haluk Yücel, various studies state that he may have been born in 1881-1882 or in 1890. His birthplace was Ardahan. He began his first training as a minstrel where he was born, from his mother, Âşık Suna, herself a minstrel. According to the account taken from Ali Cem Akbulut's book Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, at about the age of ten he moved with his family to the village of Höyük in the Şarkışla district of Sivas, lived there for some fifteen years and married.

In the same years he served Âşık Ezkarî, one of the Seyit Selahattin dedes, whose real name was İbrahim and who was better known as Dedeağa. He then went to the Hacıbektaş lodge, served there and received a hüccet, a licence attesting his competence. The lodge sent him to Merzifon, and in 1925 Musa Aslan settled in Merzifon and spent the rest of his life there. His house became a gathering place for minstrels and their admirers, and he himself led a modest life. Âşık Musa Aslan died in Merzifon in 1960 and was buried in the village of Hırka.

His Minstrelsy and Circle

According to Akbulut, Musa Aslan held Kul Fakır of Merzifon (1873-1938) in great respect, and minstrels such as Âşık Veysel (1894-1973) and Davut Sulari (1925-1985) visited him constantly. He is said to have influenced many of the minstrels who came to see him and to have raised his son Haydar (1923-1982) as a minstrel in keeping with the tradition. Especially in the years he lived in Merzifon, he helped many folk songs find their way into the archives.

The concrete trace of this role lies in the TRT repertoire. According to Yücel's musical study published in 2021, all nine works for which Musa Aslan is recorded as the source person are found in the Turkish Folk Music Repertoire of the TRT Music Department Publications: "Felek Şâd Olacak Günün Görmedim" (1029), "Gökyüzünde Bölük Bölük Durnalar" (1079), "Selâm Verdik Kadem Bastık" (1816), "Hay Edüben Meydan" (Köroğlu, 1902), "Bahçıya Getirdi" (2701), "Dem Be Dem" (2710), "Gelmiş İken Bu Elleri Gezerim" (2721), "Geldiğiniz Evler Dol'olsun Nûrdan" (the Kırklar Semahı or Gönüller Semahı, 4605) and "Türkiye'miz Şeref Buldu" (5157). The first two were collected and notated by Muzaffer Sarısözen; the others were notated from collections made by the Ankara State Conservatory, and Sarısözen, Halil Bedii Yönetken and Rıza Yetişen are also named among the collectors of the last. Yücel notes that these songs mainly use the Hüseyni and Uşşak modal scales and the 7/8, 5/8 and 10/8 rhythmic cycles, and describes his own work as the first scholarly study devoted to the analysis of Musa Aslan's songs.

His Tie to Amasya

Musa Aslan was not a native of Amasya; but he spent the last thirty-five years of his life in Merzifon, died there and was buried in the region. Studies listing the minstrels of the region therefore count him among the minstrels of Gaziler Ovacığı: in Yücel's 2018 article on the minstrels of Amasya, "Âşık Musa" is named among the minstrels who lived in the region and won a place in people's hearts, and Şerife Özer and Mustafa Topal, in a list based on the local book Dünden Bugüne Gümüşhacıköy, place "Âşık Musa" at the head of the best-known minstrels of Amasya. That the "Âşık Musa" of these lists and Musa Aslan are the same person is a conclusion drawn from reading Yücel's two studies together.

His Poetry

Copyright note: Since Âşık Musa Aslan died in 1960, his poems are under copyright protection and cannot be published on this site as separate pages. Protection lasts until the end of 2030; only two quatrains are quoted on this page.

After the life story he takes from Akbulut, Yücel gives a deyiş of five quatrains by Musa Aslan entitled "Haber Ver" (Give Me News). The deyiş has the air of a riddle built from questions put to a "man of wisdom": how the dot was created, which servant held the iron pen, who wept for years on the mountain of Serendib. This pattern of question and answer is an example of the tradition of the atışma and the muamma, in which minstrels tested one another's knowledge. The first and last quatrains of the deyiş run as follows:

Bir ehli hikmete seyran eyledim
Musa ile gezen senden haber ver
Şu kandan sinemi büryan eyledim
Ay neden halk oldu günden haber ver
Âşık Musa'm der ki düştüm bu hala
Yerde mi gökte mi firdevsi ala
Hızır verdi bend eyledim bu dala
Yediye sekiz vur andan haber ver

In the first quatrain the minstrel asks a sage for news, as if addressing the one who travelled with Moses, that is, Khidr, and asks why the moon was created. The pen name appears in the last quatrain, which asks whether paradise lies on earth or in heaven; the words "Khidr gave it" recall the belief that ties a minstrel's inspiration to Khidr. The phrase "strike eight upon seven" in the last line is like a riddle of reckoning and is not explained in the source.

The State of the Sources

Almost all that is known of Musa Aslan's life rests on Ali Cem Akbulut's book Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, published in 2010; we were not able to see the book itself and take the information from the account in Haluk Yücel's article. The two dates of birth given in the sources are some ten years apart. Nor does the source say to which district the village of Hırka, where he was buried, belongs. Yücel's study also does not separate which of Musa Aslan's songs are his own words and which are regional songs collected from his mouth; the expression "source person" covers both cases.

Chronology

1881-1882 or 1890: Born in Ardahan (both dates appear in studies).

1925: Settles in Merzifon, where he had been sent by the Hacıbektaş lodge.

1960: Dies in Merzifon and is buried in the village of Hırka.

2021: Haluk Yücel's musical study of his nine songs in the TRT repertoire is published.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, Istanbul: KaraMavi Yayınları, 2010, p. 231 (as quoted in Yücel 2021).

Online sources