Photo: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 170 — Hemân kim pervâz itdi lâ-mekâna

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

Three couplets on the setting of the sun of life, in the chapter where the Conqueror crosses into Anatolia in 886 and dies at the hour of afternoon prayer on the meadow of Maldepe.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Hemân kim pervâz itdi lâ-mekâna
Ne velvele düşer gör bu mekâna

Tolundı cân güneşi çün cihândan
Ziyâlar şu'lesi irdi ziyâna

Umaruz fazl-ı Yezdân ola zâyid
Niçe mürted kâfir gele îmâna

In English

1. As soon as (he) took flight to the placeless realm, see what an uproar fell upon this place.

2. When the sun of life set from the world, the radiance of its lights came to loss (and went out).

3. We hope that the grace of the Almighty will increase; that many an apostate and infidel will come to faith.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Meadow of Maldepe

The Conqueror's death is told in the hundred and fifty-fifth chapter in brief and measured words. The heading gives the date: that campaign took place in the year 886. On the twenty-seventh of Safer, a Friday, the Conqueror breaks camp at Constantinople and crosses the sea; he has set out to travel in Anatolia. He marches a few stages. On the fourth of Rebiülevvel, a Thursday, he camps on the meadow of Maldepe. The author says: "Exactly at the hour of the afternoon prayer he left the palace of transience and moved to the palace of permanence." The death is told with the phrase the work uses for rulers, passing "from the palace of transience to the palace of permanence". Nothing further is said in the chapter about the cause or the details of the death.

The Sun of Life

The death is met with images of flight and sunset. In the first couplet the soul has flown to "lâ-mekân", the placeless realm, and an uproar has fallen upon the place left behind. The second says that the sun of life has set from the world; the radiance of its lights has come to loss and gone out. This continues the praises in earlier verses naming the Conqueror with the sun: the ruler greeted at his rising as "a disc of sun" is now a setting sun. The last couplet ends, after the mourning, with a hope: may God's grace increase, may many an apostate and infidel come to faith. This couplet carries the wish that the Conqueror's holy wars should go on after his death. Set side by side in the rhyme, lâ-mekâna and mekâna play the placeless against place; ziyâna and îmâna complete the chain.