Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Kadîmden töredür kardaşa kıymak
Ata vü anayı gussalu komak
Kābil kim Hâbil'e kıydı ezelden
'Âdet oldı ki hanlar buña uymak
'Îsâ vü yâ Mûsâ Emîr Süleymân
İşidüñ bu töre ehlidür ahmak
Fenâ olur cihân-ıçun ne zahmet
Cihânda adını kanluya dakmak

In English

1. Slaying one's brother has been the custom since ancient times; and leaving father and mother in grief.

2. Since Cain slew Abel in the beginning, it has become the habit of khans to follow it.

3. İsa and Musa and Emir Süleyman, hear this, are people of this custom; (that custom) is folly.

4. The world is passing; why such toil for the world, to tie one's name in the world to "the bloody one".

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Sick Man at Geyve

Mehmed Çelebi's decision to settle accounts with his brother Musa opens the sixty-ninth chapter. He orders his vizier Bayezid Paşa to prepare the crossing to Rumelia. Kör Şahmelik, who had fled from Musa to Constantinople and then come to Mehmed, is summoned; he says the crossing can be made only with the help of the tekfur of Constantinople, since Gallipoli is in Musa's hands. Fazlullah, kadı of Gekbuze, is sent as envoy to the tekfur and an agreement is made. Mehmed moves from Bursa and camps at Yoros. At just this point the author adds a line from his own life: "At that time the poor writer of prayers stayed in the village. I fell ill in the house of Yahşı Fakıh, son of Orhan's imam, at Geyve, and stayed there. The legends of the House of Osman down to Yıldırım Han I related from that imam's son." So the source of the part of the work up to Yıldırım takes concrete shape as a house where he stayed during an illness. That in his youth the author stayed for a time at Yahşi Fakih's house in Geyve is noted in the TDV article as well. Then the tekfur's ships carry Mehmed's army across to Rumelia; the lords of Rumelia come over to Mehmed one by one. Musa is defeated at Samakov; as he flees his horse sinks into the mud, and his own slave Derzi Saruca hamstrings the horse and seizes him. He is killed that night and sent to Bursa to lie beside his grandfather. Mihaloğlu is imprisoned at Bidevî Çardağı in Tokat.

Cain's Custom

Four couplets tie the four brothers of the Interregnum, İsa, Musa, Emir Süleyman and, by implication, Mehmed, to the story of Cain and Abel. Fratricide is "custom since ancient times", and the khans have followed this primeval habit. The third couplet passes a harsh judgement: this custom is folly. The fourth couplet recalls the transience of the world and the emptiness of tying one's name for the world's sake to being called "the bloody one". Âşıkpaşazâde's loyalty to the dynasty stops short of approving fratricide.

Bibliography

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 418 (transliterated text, bâb 69).
  • Abdülkadir Özcan, "Âşıkpaşazâde", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 4, Istanbul 1991, pp. 6-7. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/asikpasazade

Online sources