Photo: Maarten from Netherlands, CC BY 2.0

Manzume 183 — Paşalar gamı kumaş ya filori

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

Four couplets on the viziers' need for zeal for God and the worldly aims of scholars and dervishes who visit them, told from the author's own experience.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Paşalar gamı kumaş ya filori
Gözedürler kaçan ire öbüri

Ve ger mahbûb-turur câriye oglan
Hemân-dem biter anuñ mahfî sîri

Kapucılar gelen elin gözedür
Bulaşa ellerine dünyâ kiri

'Âşıkî armagânı bil du'âdur
İre cümle cihana dünyâ nûrı

In English

1. The paşas' care is cloth or florins; they watch for when the next will come.

2. And if (what comes) is a fair slave girl or a boy, his hidden secret at once comes out.

3. The doorkeepers watch the hand of whoever comes, that the grime of the world may stick to their hands.

4. Âşıkî, know that the gift is prayer; may the light of the world reach all the earth.

Literary and Historical Commentary

From My Own State

The hundred and sixty-eighth chapter opens with an address: "Now, O dear ones, the House of Osman that exists, their swords are the sword of Islam." In the viziers of such sovereigns "zeal for God" is needed, that their good works may be multiplied. But the scholars or dervishes who come to the viziers speak of worldly ends; even if they speak words of the hereafter, their aim is to display the world. And when the paşas see their state, they say, "what difference is there between us and them?" The author ties this criticism to personal witness: "This account that I give you, I report from my own state."

The Grime of the World

The dealings at a vizier's door are told with harsh satire. The paşas' care is cloth or florins; having received one gift, they watch for when the next will come. The second couplet carries a heavier hint: if the gift that comes is a fair slave girl or a boy, the paşa's hidden secret at once comes out. The third turns to the doorkeepers: they too look at the hand of whoever comes, that the grime of the world may stick to their hands; that is, they expect bribes. In the closing couplet the author says what his own gift is: Âşıkî's gift is prayer. This is a bitter answer showing the place at a paşa's door of a dervish who comes empty-handed. The chapter lies in the part thought to be added; still, the speaker's claim to write "from my own state", in a dervish's voice, brings its language close to the earlier parts of the work. Filori, öbüri, sîri, kiri and nûrı all end in "-ri".