Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 167 — Neler feth itdi gör han kulı Ahmed

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

Four couplets with the refrain "Ahmed", in the chapter where Gedük Ahmed Paşa sails to Caffa with three hundred ships in 880, takes it by treaty, and seizes the coast forts and Mangup.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Neler feth itdi gör han kulı Ahmed
Getürdi mâl u ni'met hana Ahmed

Ve mahbûbeleri yüzleri çün mâh
Niçeler hana kim yitürdi Ahmed

Bu işler kim bu Ahmed Paşa itdi
Neyi kim han buyurdı itdi Ahmed

Bu Ahmed kim gedüklerüñ eridür
Niçe gedükleri berkitdi Ahmed

In English

1. See what Ahmed, the khan's slave, has conquered; Ahmed brought wealth and bounty to the khan.

2. Many beauties with faces like the moon did Ahmed bring to the khan.

3. These deeds that Ahmed Paşa did: whatever the khan commanded, Ahmed did.

4. This Ahmed, who is the man of the breaches: many a breach has Ahmed made firm.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Caffa and Mangup

For the conquest of Caffa the Conqueror chooses, in the hundred and fifty-first chapter, his slave Gedük Ahmed. Ahmed Paşa sets out with three hundred ships. Caffa surrenders by treaty; the church is made a Friday mosque, the tekfur is seized and the people are registered class by class. Then the coastal fortresses from Azak and Yabugermen as far as the Circassians are taken. Mangup is the longest account in the chapter. The tekfur of Mangup wishes to give up the fortress, but his rival inside and the people will not agree; they even want to drive the tekfur's wife and son out of the fortress. When the fortress cannot be taken by fighting, Ahmed Paşa breaks camp and leaves some troops before it; after a few days these troops too seem to withdraw and lie in ambush near the fortress. Many people have crowded into the fortress and are worn out by the press; on seeing the troops withdraw, they begin to come out. The army of Islam in ambush at once seizes the fortress by the collar. Mangup too is registered like Caffa; its lords and cavalrymen are sent to Constantinople, its treasures placed in the sovereign's treasury, a kadı appointed, the churches made mosques and the sermon read. The date is 880 (1475).

The Man of the Breaches

Here the refrain is a name: each of the eight lines of the four couplets ends with "Ahmed". The author praises the paşa as a slave: he brought wealth and bounty to the khan, brought moon-faced beauties to him, and did everything the khan commanded. The last couplet plays on the paşa's nickname. "Gedük" is both the paşa's nickname and a breach or gap opened in a wall. The author names him "the man of the breaches" and says he made many a breach firm; that is, he closed both the breaches in fortresses and the gaps on the frontiers of the state. This play on words turns the short verse into a quatrain of praise.