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Manzume 66 — Cihân hükmi v'eger hanlar elinde

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

Bayezid wants to burn the corrupt kadıs, an Arab jester saves them with a joke about monks and their fees are fixed; three couplets draw the lesson of the anecdote.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cihân hükmi v'eger hanlar elinde
Velî kulpı dânişmendler dilinde

Takar kulpuna biñ hîle ipini
Kurar tuzak Müsülmânlar yolında

Hâssa kim sûfî dânişmend ola
Neler düzer bu hanlaruñ ilinde

In English

1. Though the rule of the world be in the hands of khans, its handle is on the tongues of the learned.

2. He ties a thousand ropes of trickery to its handle; he sets snares on the path of the Muslims.

3. Above all if the learned man is a Sufi, what does he not contrive in these khans' lands.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Judges and Monks

In the rest of the chapter the author tells "an anecdote". The Ottomans are an upright line, but in the time of Çandarlı Halil and his son Ali Paşa the learned men became involved in trickery. When the corruption of the kadıs reaches the khan, Bayezid has them shut in a house at Yenişehir and says, "Go, set fire to that house, let the kadıs burn inside it." Ali Paşa is at a loss and tells the khan's companion Mashara Arab that he will give him much wealth if he saves the kadıs. The Arab comes before the khan and asks to be sent as envoy to Constantinople; he will ask the tekfur for monks, he says, and when the kadıs are killed the monks will become kadıs in their place. The khan is angered: "If I give the judgeships away, why not give them to my own slaves?" The Arab says the khan's slaves are not educated, while the monks have studied for years. Bayezid asks Ali Paşa whether the kadıs are educated; Ali Paşa says "is anyone made kadı who has not studied?" and adds that the kadıs' income is small. According to the author, the kadıs' taking a fee of twenty akçe per thousand in his own day is due to Ali Paşa's efforts.

Handle and Lasso

The lesson drawn from the anecdote is this: the rule of the world is in the hands of khans, but its "handle", its grip, is on the tongues of the learned. In the second couplet a thousand ropes of trickery are tied to that handle and snares are laid on the Muslims' path. The third couplet extends the criticism to the learned men who pass for Sufis; the same theme will be treated again in the chapters on the son of the kadı of Simavna and Börklüce Mustafa. These harsh words from the pen of a dervish are an early example of Âşıkpaşazâde's stance against false Sufis. Elinde, dilinde, yolında and ilinde rhyme on "-inde/-ında".