Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre (first line 12 syllables)

Cümle erenler bir araya geldiler
Aslımı zatımı sorup bildiler
Hulusî kalbime nazar kıldılar
Koydular ismimi oldum Fedâî

In English

1. All the saints gathered together; they asked after my origin and my essence, and they knew them. They cast their gaze upon my sincere heart (granting it spiritual grace with their look); they gave me my name, and I became Fedâî.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is taken from a poem on page 246 of the divan and is known today from the quotation in Cafer Özdemir's article. It is in the eleven-syllable metre, with only the first line having twelve syllables. The words "geldiler, bildiler, kıldılar" link the first three lines; the fourth line ends with the pen name. That the pen name comes as the last word of the quatrain suggests that the fragment is the last quatrain of the poem; this is our inference. Özdemir states that he corrected the spelling in his quotations.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

These lines tell the story of a pen name. In minstrel literature, minstrels trained through the master-apprentice relationship receive their pen names from their masters, while minstrels who have drunk the bade, the drink of initiation, attribute their pen names to a dream. Fedâî Baba belongs to the second group. In the dream related in the introduction to the divan, he falls asleep at a place of visitation opposite his village, is carried on the back of a white bird to a tomb, and there three radiant figures, identified as the Prophet Muhammad, Ali and Hacı Bektaş Velî, give him a milk-like drink. When he wakes of his own accord, he has been given the pen name Fedâî. Özdemir quotes this quatrain, noting that the poet referred to this dream in a poem he composed later and stated that his pen name was given to him by the saints.

The quatrain contains none of the extraordinary details of the dream; it tells only the outcome. The saints gathering and asking after the poet's "origin and essence" is an inquiry into who he is, into his lineage and his inner nature; "hulusî kalp" is a sincere and pure heart. "Nazar kılmak", to cast a gaze, means in Sufism that a saint conveys spiritual grace to a disciple through his look. The words "koydular ismimi" (they gave me my name) in the last line make the naming a decision of the saints rather than the poet's own choice. The word fedâî means one who sacrifices his life for a cause; the poet's receiving this name as a grace also speaks of his devotion to the path.

Historical Context

When the dream was seen is not known. Read together with the years in which Fedâî Baba received his Sufi training from Derûnî Baba at the Keçeci Baba Ocağı in Erbaa, the account in the introduction suggests that the story of the pen name belongs to the poet's youth, but no exact date can be given.

Bibliography

  • Cafer Özdemir, "Hak Âşığı Amasyalı Fedâî Baba ve Tasavvuf Kültürü", Türk Kültürü ve Hacı Bektaş Velî Araştırma Dergisi, 83, 2017, pp. 125-148 (dream: pp. 129-130; quatrain: p. 130). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/tkhcbva/issue/71937/1157386
  • Abdullah Çelebi, Amasya'lı Fedayi Baba Divanı, Istanbul: Can Yayınları, 1991, pp. 19-20, 246 (cited from Özdemir 2017).

Online sources