Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Allahu 'Alîm ü Hayy u Kādir
Sâni'ü sanâyi' hâzır u nâzır
İy yoklıkdan iden bu varı izhâr
Birligine hem itdüren ikrâr
İnsânı iden fakîr ü sultân
Hükmine viren delîl ü bürhân
İy 'aybı görüp setr iden Hak
Gaffâr-ı zünûb Hâkim-i mutlak
Göñül gözine cemâli göster
Bir kulam u ben za'îf ü kemter

In English

1. God is all-knowing, living and all-powerful; the Maker who brings works of art into being, present everywhere and watching over all.

2. O You who drew this being out of nothingness and made it confess Your oneness.

3. Who makes man now poor, now a sultan, and gives proof and evidence to His decree.

4. O God, who sees a fault and covers it; forgiver of sins, absolute Judge.

5. Show Your beauty to the eye of the heart; I am a servant, weak and lowly.

Literary and Historical Commentary

At the Threshold of the Book

Âşıkpaşazâde begins his history with the basmala and a short Arabic praise of God, then introduces himself: Derviş Ahmed Âşıkî, of the line of Şeyh Yahyâ, Şeyh Selmân, Âşık Paşa, Muhlis Paşa and Baba İlyâs. He tells how, while sitting in Istanbul "in the corner of retirement", a company of people spoke of the legends of the Ottoman house and asked him too, and how he found the legends written down by Yahşı Fakıh, son of İshak Fakıh, the imam of Orhan Gazi. He says he heard the pen speak to "the page of the plain", that his heart was struck with wonder, and under the heading "Nazm" he writes these couplets. In the edition the five couplets form the first section of the same mesnevi as the already published Mesnevi 1; this page gives only the prayer.

The Language of the Prayer

The couplets are a list of divine names: 'Alîm, Hayy, Kādir, Sâni', Gaffâr, Hâkim. In the third couplet the power that makes man "fakîr ü sultân", poor or sultan, is not a chance detail at the head of a dynastic history; it reminds the reader that the sultans about to be described are also servants. "Setr" in the fourth couplet, the covering of faults, is a well-known Sufi notion and fits the author's identity as a dervish. In the last couplet he calls himself "za'îf ü kemter", weak and lowly; this is the first time the historian's own voice is heard. The short lines of nine or ten syllables lean, like the rest of the mesnevi, on the pattern "mef'ûlü mefâ'ilün fe'ûlün"; a few spill over it. Each couplet rhymes within itself: Kādir/nâzır, izhâr/ikrâr, sultân/bürhân, Hak/mutlak, göster/kemter. The author's life is told separately on the page Âşıkî (Âşıkpaşazâde).

Bibliography

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 319-320 (transliterated text, introduction).
  • Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, "Önsöz" and "Hayatı ve 'Tarih'iyle Âşık Paşazade", in Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 25-48.