"Eviniz mübarek olsun, ocağın aydın olsun" (may your house be blessed, may your hearth be bright): this prayer, returning in each of the three stanzas, makes plain from the words themselves that the hymn was sung in a home, at a mevlid or a gathering to complete a reading of the Qur'an. The last stanza takes its leave: "Burda durup nidelim / ... / İzin verin gidelim" (why should we linger here / ... / give us leave, let us go). This hymn in the Hüseynî mode is the fastest of the pieces collected from the memory of Hacı Asiye Akbaş, written in 3/4 with the crotchet at 130. Fatih Koca placed it fifth on the list in his 2015 article.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it is not in the TRT Turkish folk music repertoire under Amasya
  • Genre: ilahi, a religious hymn (score title "Hüseyni İlahi - Evisi")
  • Region: Amasya (city centre)
  • Source person: Hacı Asiye Akbaş, together with Ayşe Candaş
  • Collected by: Osman Akbaş and Fatih Koca
  • Transcribed by: Eren Köksal (revising the collection)
  • Date of collection: not explicit in the article; the interview took place at the Ramadan Bayram of 2013
  • Makam (mode): Hüseynî
  • Metre and tempo: 3/4, crotchet = 130
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source publication: Koca 2015, list p. 937, score p. 943
  • Where the recording is kept: not stated
  • Source link: article; no TRT counterpart

Lyrics

Three stanzas of seven lines each are printed in three columns below the score; the columns are given here in order from left to right.

Evisi Hakkın Dostu
Erenler kadem bastı
Eviniz mübarek olsun
Ocağın aydın olsun
İmanımız kamil olsun
Ahretimiz mamur olsun
Hatmimiz kabul olsun
Bu bir sırdır bilinmez
Bunu cahiller bilmez
Cemale doyum olmaz
Eviniz mübarek olsun
Ocağın aydın olsun
İmanımız kamil olsun
Mevlidin kabul olsun
Burda durup nidelim
Durman tevhid edelim
İzin verin gidelim
Eviniz mübarek olsun
Ocağın aydın olsun
İmanımız kamil olsun
Mevlidin kabul olsun

The article does not explain what "Evisi", the word in the first line that gives the hymn its name, means; the score divides it into three syllables, "E-vi-si", and its meaning has not been filled in here by guesswork. The rest of the line is clear: the friend of God, the saints (erenler), have set foot in this house. The prayers that follow are addressed to the people of the house: may your house be blessed and your hearth bright; may our faith be whole and our hereafter prosperous; may the completed reading (hatim) be accepted. The second stanza says this is a secret, that the ignorant do not know it and that one never has one's fill of "cemal", divine beauty; here the prayer turns to the mevlid. In the third stanza "nidelim" is the dialect form of "ne edelim" and "durman" of "durmayın": what should we do lingering here, do not tarry, let us proclaim God's unity; give us leave, let us go.

Story

Who wrote the words or made the tune is unknown, and no account of the piece's origin has been recorded. What Koca relates about Akbaş, however, helps in understanding the setting in which this hymn lived. Akbaş chose the hymns she placed among the sections of the mevlid according to the occasion of the gathering, and at births, deaths, mevlids for soldiers and brides, and send-offs and welcomes for pilgrims she sang pieces whose words suited that gathering. Which of these occasions "Evisi" was reserved for is not written down. The stanzas end once with "hatmimiz" and twice with "mevlidin kabul olsun"; the words pray both for the completed reading and for the mevlid.

Musical Features

The 3/4 metre, with the crotchet marked at 130, drives the piece at a far livelier pace than the other hymns collected from Akbaş. The score falls into three parts. The first eight bars carry the opening lines of the first and second stanzas one beneath the other and are repeated. From bar nine to bar twenty comes the prayer "Eviniz mübarek olsun"; in the second stanza the line "Cemale doyum olmaz" is also fitted into this section. In bar twenty-one a new phrase begins with "Ahretimiz mamur olsun". In bars twenty-four and twenty-five two fermatas hold the melody on the word "olsun", and here the F sharp of the key signature is turned once into F natural. After this pause the line "hatmimiz" or "mevlidin kabul olsun" closes on La with a long final note. The segno signs at the beginning and end of the piece show that the later stanzas are sung again from the start. The melody moves between La and the Sol above.

Performers and Recordings

The performance on which the score rests is that of Asiye Akbaş and Ayşe Candaş singing together. The album whose corrections Akbaş helped with is named at one point in the article as İlahi Anadolu Amasya İlahileri (Origami Yapım, Istanbul 2010); the "İlahi Anadolu" CD containing Burhan Özbakır's collections, on the other hand, is dated 2012 in a footnote and "2011-2012" in the bibliography. Whether these are the same publication does not emerge with certainty from the article. With the contents of neither publication known, whether "Evisi" is sung there remains uncertain. A broad survey of Amasya's folk melodies is in the general article that treats the province's melodies together. Koca writes that Akbaş, who was 65 when he wrote the article, still carried out these duties, if not as much as before, and went on washing the dead and reciting at mevlid gatherings.

Bibliography

Online sources