Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 123 — Açıldı ma'din-i genc-i vilâyet

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 14 October 2026 • 3 min reading

Germe as the gate of a treasure: the wall at the entrance to the Morea is battered with cannon and sacked, and the author calls it the first conquest of the Morea.

Contents 4

1Original Ottoman Turkish Text
2In English
3Literary and Historical Commentary
4Bibliography

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Açıldı ma'din-i genc-i vilâyet
Ki Âl-i 'Osmân'a oldı hidâyet

Vilâyet-i Mora zulmetde-y-iken
Sa'âdet güni dogdı hôş beşâret

Bu Âl-i 'Osmân'uñ fethi hisâbsuz
Ki Hak bulara itmişdür işâret

In English

1. The mine of the treasury of the land was opened, so that it became guidance for the House of Osman.

2. While the land of the Morea was in darkness, the day of felicity dawned, what fair tidings.

3. The conquests of this House of Osman are past counting; for God has given them a sign.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Germe

The gate of the land of the Morea is the fortress of Germe, and the hundred and thirteenth chapter tells of its conquest. Germe is Turahan Beg's frontier; he goes ahead and the khan follows. Five fortresses are seen, set so as to support one another; but the khan "had seen the defences not of five fortresses but of ten." Cannon are set up; the copper for the cannon had been carried with the army, shared out banner by banner beforehand, and the guns are cast on the spot. Night and day the infidels are allowed no sleep; the ditch dug by cutting from the sea is filled, its water drained, the fortresses pulled down. "Plunder" is proclaimed; the gazis enter the fortress, and raids are given to the raiders. Beautiful slave girls sell for three hundred akçe, gold and silver trays and chased cups cannot be counted; the gazis are so sated that they cannot be bothered to pick up a piece of broadcloth. The author closes the chapter: "This, which the poor writer has set out, is the first conquest of the land of the Morea at the hands of Sultan Murad Han." The date is 842 (1438-39).

The Gate of the Treasury

In the first line, which opens with "Açıldı", it was opened, Germe is the gate of a treasure mine. In the first couplet the opening of this gate is named a guidance for the House of Osman. The second tells of the Morea's passage from darkness to light as a day of felicity. The third says the Ottoman conquests are past counting and that this is a sign from God. The detail in the prose of copper cannon cast during the campaign shows that the author was also interested in military technique; the author, who said that cannon were "not well known" at Bayezid's siege of Constantinople, here records that the cannon had become part of the Ottoman army. The couplets rhyme on "-et": vilâyet, hidâyet, beşâret, işâret.