Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Velîdür her ne han kim 'âdil olsa
Degül 'ayıb cihân aña kul olsa
Süleymân 'adl idüp tutdı cihânı
Süleymân mislidür han 'âdil olsa
Göñül şehri 'adâvetden yıkılur
'Adâvet hem bozar il ma'mûr olsa
'Âşıkî koma göñlüñde 'adâvet
Bozar îmânuñı ger bir kıl olsa
In English
1. Whatever khan is just is a saint; it is no shame if the world becomes his servant.
2. Solomon held the world by doing justice; a khan who is just is like Solomon.
3. The city of the heart is ruined by enmity; enmity ruins a land, even a prosperous one.
4. Âşıkî, leave no enmity in your heart; though it be a single hair, it spoils your faith.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Barley and Straw
A complaint opens the sixty-third chapter: the people of Hamidili appeal to Bayezid against the oppression of the lord of Karaman. Bayezid marches from Teke into Karaman; on the way he has Yakub Beg of Germiyan, his vizier Hisar Beg and his subaşı seized and imprisoned in the fortress of İpsala. The lord of Karaman flees into Taş; Bayezid camps before Konya and the city gates are shut. It is threshing time; heaps of barley and wheat stand in the square of Konya. The soldiers call to the fortress asking for barley and straw to be sold for their horses. The people of the fortress send men to learn whether this is true; the khan sends two slaves and says, "Take care that no one is wronged; let the owner of the barley sell at his own fair price." Those who sell their barley are safely escorted back to the fortress. Seeing this good faith, the people open the city gate; the news spreads to the surrounding towns that "this sovereign who has come is most just". Aksaray, Niğde, Kayseri and Develi Karahisarı are handed over. The lord of Karaman begs pardon and the Çarşamba river becomes the border.
Justice as Sainthood
Opening on the word "Velî", saint, the first couplet compresses the lesson of this scene into a single comparison: a just khan is like a saint, and it is right that the world should become his servant. In the second couplet Solomon is again given as the example; he is the measure of the ruler who holds the world through justice. The third and fourth couplets carry justice into the heart: the city of the heart is ruined by enmity, and even a hair's breadth of enmity spoils faith. In the couplet bearing his pen name the counsel turns back on the author himself. In the prose of the chapter a fortress is taken not by the sword but by honesty in trade. Placed beside the passages where Âşıkpaşazâde criticises Yıldırım Bayezid, it reveals an author who looked at the same ruler with balance: a khan whose justice deserved praise and whose faults deserved criticism.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 404 (transliterated text, bâb 63).
