Âşıkî, Manzume 134: Cihanı ma'mûr iden 'adl-i hanlar

Manzume 134 — Cihanı ma'mûr iden 'adl-i hanlar

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

Five couplets on the just khan, in the chapter where conquered Constantinople is resettled, a rent drives people away, and the Conqueror builds a mosque and medreses.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cihanı ma'mûr iden 'adl-i hanlar
Ve'ger zulm itse hem dökile kanlar

Sebeb kodı bu hanı Hak cihana
Ki Hakk'a togrı gide cümle cânlar

Şerî'atüñ nizâmı han elinde
Kodı Hak kim ola şer'î beyânlar

Dîn ü dünyâñı ma'mûr olmaga bil
Sebebdür şer'i tuta cümle hanlar

Âşıkî yaz menâkıb Âl-i Osmân
Ki bu âle du'â ide 'ayânlar

In English

1. It is just khans who make the world prosper; if they oppress, blood too is shed.

2. God set this khan in the world as a means, that all souls might go straight to God.

3. The order of the sacred law is in the khan's hand; God set it so that there might be lawful rulings.

4. Know that the cause of faith and world prospering is that all khans hold to the sacred law.

5. Âşıkî, write the legends of the House of Osman, that the notables may pray for this house.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Rent

Constantinople lay in ruins after the conquest, and the hundred and twenty-third chapter tells how it was filled with people again. Households are driven from every province to Constantinople and given houses as property. But then a "mukāta'a", a rent, is imposed; the people begin to flee from it. At Kula Şahin's word the rent is remitted. Then a vizier, the son of an infidel, brings the rent back: he reckons that the people will stop building property, that the town will fall into ruin again and in the end remain "in the hands of our people". A question and answer says who this vizier was: "It was Rûm Muhammed, a captive from Constantinople, whom the sovereign later had strangled like a dog." Then the Conqueror's buildings in Constantinople are listed: eight medreses, a great mosque in the middle, opposite it an imaret, at one side a hospital, behind the medreses annexes for the students; and over Eyüp Ensari an imaret, a medrese, a mosque and a tomb.

The Just Khan

At the end of this tangled chapter Âşıkpaşazâde sets down what a just ruler is. It is just khans who make the world prosper; if they oppress, blood is shed. God has set the khan as a means for people to turn to God; the order of the sacred law is in his hand. The fourth couplet ties the flourishing of faith and world to khans holding to the sacred law. In the last the author names his own task: he must write the legends so that the notables may pray for this house. Coming right after the criticism of the rent in the prose, the verse serves as a measure: oppression, an unjust rent, empties the town; justice fills it. The line-endings hanlar, kanlar, cânlar, beyânlar, hanlar and 'ayânlar all close on the plural "-lar".