Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün feʿûlün. There is no metre in the intermediary source; the pattern is our reading, and a few syllables are read lengthened.

Okundı hutbe kim Gâzi 'Osmân
Ertoñrol oglı Gâzi han 'Osmân
Temerrüd ehli kâfirler kırandur
O mü'min leşkerine hân 'Osmân
Ki 'adli bezli hep tutdı cihânı
'Atâsı sâyesi ni'metlü 'Osmân
Harâb iden putı puthâneleri
'İmâret dîn-i İslâm itdi 'Osmân
Münâdîler nidâ ider salâdur
Sa'âdet bahş ider dir geldi 'Osmân
Kuruldı devleti çetri ezelden
Ebed bâki kalur bil nesli-i 'Osmân

In English

1. The sermon (hutbe) was read: in the name of Gazi Osman, Gazi Khan Osman, son of Ertuğrul.

2. Osman is the one who crushes the stubborn infidels and is khan to that army of believers.

3. His justice and generosity filled the whole world; Osman, rich in bounty, whose gifts are a shade over the people.

4. Osman, who destroyed the idols and the idol-houses, made the religion of Islam flourish.

5. The heralds call out the salâ: "Osman has come, bestowing felicity," they say.

6. His state and his royal parasol (çetr) were set up from pre-eternity; know that the line of Osman will endure to eternity.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The First Sermon

The reading of a ruler's name in the Friday sermon was one of the clearest signs of independence in the Islamic world. Emine Sonnur Özcan summarises this moment in Âşıkpaşazâde's narrative as follows: after the capture of İnegöl and Karacahisar the people wish to perform the Friday prayer at Karacahisar and to ask for a judge. When Tursun Fakih reminds him that permission must be obtained from the Seljuk sultan, Osman Gazi objects: "Bu şehiri ben hôd kendü kılıcum-ıla aldum. Bunda Sultânuñ bunda ne dahlı var kim andan izin alam", I took this city with my own sword; what business has the sultan here, that I should ask his leave. He says that the God who gave the sultan his sultanate has given him khanship through holy war. The notables are persuaded, Tursun Fakih becomes judge and preacher, and, as Özcan notes, the Friday sermon is read for the first time in Osman Gazi's name at Karacahisar in 699 (1299-1300). The poem is the verse counterpart of this event.

One Name, Six Couplets

The second line of each of the six couplets ends with the name "'Osmân"; in the opening couplet (matla) the name is repeated twice. The poem itself thus works like a sermon: in every couplet the ruler's name is pronounced again. The couplets list in turn all the attributes of a ruler's praise: lineage (son of Ertuğrul), war (crusher of infidels, khan of the army of believers), justice and generosity, the spread of the faith (destroyer of idols, who made Islam flourish), the people's joy (heralds calling the salâ) and finally an eternal state. Özcan says that these couplets describe how Osman Gazi, with the strength he drew from the line of Gök Alp and the army of believers he gathered, crushed those who resisted Islam and spread his justice over the earth, and that all this amounts to the proclamation of a state that would endure from pre-eternity to eternity.

The "çetr" in the last couplet is the parasol of sovereignty held over the ruler's head; the words "ezel" and "ebed", pre-eternity and eternity, are set against each other in the same couplet, carrying both the beginning and the end of the state outside time. The "salâ" in the fifth couplet is the prayer, distinct from the call to prayer, recited in mosques to summon the people to an occasion; the heralds' announcing Osman's coming with this voice unites the religious and the political proclamation in a single scene.

Text and Attribution

Since the edition could not be consulted, the text rests on Özcan's quotation from page 340; in the article the couplets stand three by three in two columns. The order given here comes from reading the two columns side by side, and it may not match the edition. The spelling "nesli-i" in the last line has been left as it is in the article. As with the other poem on the same refrain, only its form ties the piece to Âşıkî; in a work that also contains passages from Ahmedî, that is no more than a guess. His life, and the argument over the sources, are set out in Âşıkî (Âşıkpaşazâde).

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 339-340 (as quoted by Özcan).

Online sources