Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eight-syllable syllabic metre

Amasya vatan ilimiz
Arzumuz Hubuyar Sultan
Hakka mâlumdur hâlimiz
Arzumuz Hubuyar Sultan

In English

1. Amasya is our homeland, our home province; our wish is Hubuyar Sultan (to reach his threshold). Our state is known to the Truth, God knows our condition; our wish is Hubuyar Sultan.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This quatrain is taken from a longer poem by Fedâî Baba and has come down to us only as a fragment quoted in Cafer Özdemir's article; the full poem is on page 172 of the divan published by Abdullah Çelebi in 1991. The lines are in the eight-syllable metre. The rhyme "ilimiz, hâlimiz" links the first and third lines, while the line "Arzumuz Hubuyar Sultan" (our wish is Hubuyar Sultan) is repeated in second and fourth position. A refrain occurring twice in one quatrain is a pattern peculiar to the opening quatrain of koşma and semai poems; it is therefore very likely that the fragment is the first quatrain of the poem, but this is our inference. Since Özdemir states that he made spelling and grammatical corrections in his quotations, the text may differ slightly from the spelling of the divan.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain sets two different attachments side by side. The first line names the poet's homeland in this world, Amasya; the refrain names the place towards which his heart turns, the name of a saint. The expression "vatan ili" (home province) shows that Fedâî presents himself first of all as a man of Amasya. Özdemir, too, quotes these lines as proof that the poet himself says that his homeland is Amasya. The line "Hakka mâlumdur hâlimiz" (our state is known to the Truth) is an expression of trust in God often found in folk poetry: the poet does not dwell on his troubles but simply says that it is God who knows his condition.

Hubuyar Sultan must be Hubyar Baba, or Hubyar Sultan, one of the saints in whose name an ocak (hereditary holy lineage) exists in the Alevi tradition. Hüsameddin mentions him as a deputy of Zünnûn; some researchers write that in later years Hubyar Baba settled in the village of Hubyar in the Tokat-Sivas region. The poet's naming him as "our wish" expresses the desire to reach his threshold and visit him. Since the source does not explain the name Hubuyar, this identification is also our interpretation.

Historical Context

Fedâî Baba was a Hak âşığı who travelled through the villages of Amasya and its surroundings in the winter months, and he often mentions in his poems the tombs and ocaks he visited. That a poet trained at the Keçeci Baba Ocağı, while regarding Amasya as his homeland, should also declare his devotion to the saint of another ocak in the region shows the breadth of the geography of faith he moved through.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Abdullah Çelebi, Amasya'lı Fedayi Baba Divanı, Istanbul: Can Yayınları, 1991, p. 172 (cited from Özdemir 2017).
  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 3, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, p. 502 (Hubyar Baba).

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources