Gulamî is the pen name of an Alevi minstrel (âşık) from Merzifon. His real name and his dates of birth and death are not known. In the list of the âşıks of Gaziler Ovacığı his name is spelled "Gülamî"; his only surviving poem is the deyiş called "Cemal Efendim", addressed to Cemalettin Efendi, çelebi of the Hacı Bektaş lodge. This deyiş was quoted, from an informant's notebook of deyiş, in the master's thesis on the zakir tradition of Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy completed by Fedai Şahin in 2024. We found no other information about Gulamî.

His Life

The only thing known of Gulamî's life is that Şahin introduces him as "the âşık from Merzifon with the pen name Gulami". That his deyiş addresses Cemalettin Çelebi and names him as a living guide shows that the poet was an adult âşık during Cemalettin Çelebi's years as çelebi, that is, between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and 1921. The year of Cemalettin Çelebi's death is given in the sources as 1921 or 1922. According to the local accounts collected by Şahin, Cemalettin Çelebi travelled through this region with Sıtkı Baba and left him in Merzifon as his deputy; for this reason he is deeply revered in the area and many of the region's âşıks wrote poems for him. Şahin gives Gulamî's deyiş as one of the finest examples of these poems.

His Connection with Amasya

Şahin introduces Gulamî plainly as being from Merzifon. The informant from whom the deyiş was collected is also among the zakirs of Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy. In the list based on the Gümüşhacıköy book of Ahmet Ankaralı, Sedat Cin and Galip Tuncay, reproduced by Şerife Özer and Mustafa Topal in 2021 and by Fatih Çelebi in 2026, the name "Gülamî" stands between Hızır Sersem and İskender Haki among the best-known âşıks of Amasya. It is very probable that the Gülamî of the list and the Gulami of Merzifon in Şahin's thesis are the same person, but the sources do not say so explicitly; this identification is ours. The list can also be read on our page The minstrel tradition in Amasya.

His Poetry

Copyright note: Since Gulamî's date of death is not known, it cannot be determined whether his poem is under copyright protection. The deyiş must have been composed before 1921, but since the possibility that the poet died after 1956 cannot be ruled out, the poem is not published on a separate page; only two of its quatrains are quoted here.

The deyiş given in Şahin's thesis under the title "Cemal Efendim" is a koşma of seven quatrains in the eleven-syllable syllabic metre; every quatrain ends with the refrain "Ersem muradıma Cemal Efendi" (if only I could attain my wish, Cemal Efendi). The deyiş is built from beginning to end on a longing for union: the lover wishes to see the çelebi's face and to sacrifice his life on his path, and names in turn images of the lodge such as the post, Hırka Dağı and the kırkbudak candelabrum. The first quatrain reads:

İntizarım didarını görmeye
Ersem muradıma Cemal Efendi
Bu canı yürekten kurban kılmaya
Ersem muradıma Cemal Efendi

In English: "I wait to see your face; if only I could attain my wish, Cemal Efendi. I wait to sacrifice this soul with all my heart; if only I could attain my wish, Cemal Efendi." In the last quatrain, which bears the pen name, the poet calls himself "wretched" and asks for help directly from Hacı Bektaş:

Sefil Gulami'yi sevdaya saldın
Medet Hacı Bektaş sen nerde kaldın
Nice düşmüşlerin elini aldın
Ersem muradıma Cemal Efendi

In English: "You cast poor Gulamî into love; help, Hacı Bektaş, where have you stayed. You took the hand of many who had fallen; if only I could attain my wish, Cemal Efendi." The pen name itself is meaningful: "gulâm" means slave or servant and is often used in Alevi-Bektashi poetry to express devotion to the Imams or to the pir. The other quatrains of the deyiş tell of the dervishes sitting on the post, the water of Zamzam flowing to the loving friend, a road of fifteen days shortened to a single step by longing, and the lover's indifference to others calling him "mad".

The State of the Sources

The only source on Gulamî is Şahin's thesis, and the thesis gives only his pen name and his homeland. The deyiş was taken from the notebook of Erdal Denk, shown with the code K.Ş.D.4 in the list of informants' notebooks in the thesis appendix. The pen name Gulamî was also used by other minstrels in Anatolia. The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü records an Alevi-Bektashi âşık with the pen name Gulamî, born in 1904 in the village of Temecik in Şarkışla, Sivas, and died in Kayseri in 1963, two of whose poems survive. There is no information showing any connection between this âşık and Gulamî of Merzifon; when Cemalettin Çelebi died in 1921 the Gulamî of Sivas would have been seventeen years old. Nevertheless, since the date of death of the minstrel of Merzifon is unknown, caution has been exercised regarding the copyright status of his poem.

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