Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Yâ İlâhî sen beni insâna muḥtâc eyleme
Olur olmaz nâ-ḥak-ı nâ-dâna muḥtâc eyleme
Ol ḥabîbiň faḫr-i ‘âlem Muṣṭafânıň ‘aşḳına
Çâresüz ḳılup (da) dûşîmâna muḥtâc eyleme

In English

1. O God, do not make me dependent on men; do not make me dependent on any unjust and ignorant person who comes along.

2. For the love of Your beloved, Mustafa, the pride of the world, do not leave me helpless and make me dependent on my enemies.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The article gives two couplets of this gazel (ghazal); the rest of the poem is not visible. The couplets share the redif "muhtâc eyleme" (do not make dependent); "insâna, nâdâna, dûşîmâna" carry the rhyme in the sound "-âna". The first line of the second couplet is unrhymed, as the ghazal form requires. The lines follow the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; the identification of the metre is ours. The word "dûşîmân" is given as read in the article and means enemy.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The gazel is a münâcât, a prayer of supplication to God, built around a single wish: not to be dependent on anyone. In the first couplet the wish is stated generally and then narrowed: the poet takes refuge in God above all from being dependent on the "nâ-hak" and the "nâ-dân", the unjust and the ignorant. In the second couplet the prayer is tied to the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad. "Habîb" means the beloved of God, and "fahr-i âlem" the pride of the world; Mustafa is one of the names of the Prophet. The wish this time is not to be left helpless and dependent on enemies. Not being dependent on others is a wish also spoken as a prayer among the people; the gazel joins this common feeling with the addresses to the Prophet found in the naat tradition of divan poetry. According to the TEİS article Âşık Ömer was a poet of strong religious faith, devoted to the Prophet and the four caliphs; the language of this gazel agrees with that description.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded in the Merzifon Cönkü under the pen name Ömer. Metin Hakverdioğlu refers the Ömer of the cönk to Şükrü Elçin's book Âşık Ömer, published in 1987, and so identifies him with the great minstrel poet of the seventeenth century. The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü notes that Âşık Ömer's poems have become mixed with those of other poets using the pen name Ömer; since we could not compare the poem with the editions of Ergun or Elçin, the attribution rests on the record in the cönk. The poet's life is in the article Âşık Ömer.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

  • Şükrü Elçin, Âşık Ömer, Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1987 (as cited by Hakverdioğlu 2019).

Books

Online sources