Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Ey muḳaddes ḳudret ıssı ḫâlıḳu’l-eşyâ hu dost
K’anı nûrdan kâ’inâtı var iden Mevlâ hu dost

In English

1. O holy One, possessor of power, creator of all things, hû dost; Lord who brought the universe into being from light, hû dost.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as a ghazal (gazel). The ghazal is the aruz verse form whose opening couplet (matla) rhymes within itself and whose other couplets are tied to that rhyme; folk poets also used this form. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the opening couplet of this poem. The refrain is "hû dost"; the rhyme is the "-â" sound in "eşyâ / Mevlâ". The identification of the metre is ours; as is usual in the aruz poems of folk poets, some syllables may not fit the pattern exactly. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet has the tone of a münâcât, a prayer addressed to God. In "kudret ıssı" (possessor of power), "ıssı" is Old Turkish for "owner, master"; set beside the Arabic phrase "hâlıku'l-eşyâ" (creator of things), it shows the folk poet using both languages together. The second line says that the universe was brought into being from light; this reflects the idea, common in Sufism, that existence was created from divine light. The call "hû dost" in the refrain is known from dervish lodge remembrance and from Bektaşî and Alevî hymns; addressing God as "dost", friend, is among the most common expressions of Sufi poetry. The reading "K'anı" at the start of the line follows the article; it appears to mean "ki anı" ("who ... it").

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the name of Erzurumlu Emrah in the Merzifon Cönkü, a manuscript miscellany held in Metin Hakverdioğlu's own library and introduced by him in 2019. The cönk contains eleven of Emrah's poems, three in syllabic metre and eight in aruz. In cönks and miscellanies Emrah's poems have become mixed with those of Ercişli Emrah and of his apprentice Tokatlı Nûrî; the record in the cönk is therefore not by itself conclusive proof of authorship. For the poet's connection with Merzifon and his other poems in the cönk, see the page on Erzurumlu Emrah. The poem is on page 98 of the cönk and page 547 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources