Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Oldı musaħħar bize çü Şamla Rûm,
Düşmene demür bolduħ, dostlara mûm,
Her kişiler yürisün yollarına,
Çün dôsta mübareküz düşmene şûm.

In English

1. Syria and Rum (the Mamluk lands and Anatolia) have submitted to us; we have become iron to the enemy and wax to our friends.

2. Let everyone go his own way; for we are a blessing to the friend and an ill omen to the foe.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a tuyugh (tuyuğ) of four lines. The first, second and fourth lines rhyme in the sound "-ûm" of the words "Rûm", "mûm" and "şûm"; the third line stays free with "yollarına". The text is taken from Nevzat Özkan's article with the reference KBD 607/10-11; it falls near the end of the tuyugh section, which the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi gives as pages 586-608. In Özkan's text the spellings "dostlara" and "dôsta" differ; both have been kept as in the source. The form "bolduħ" (we became) in the second line is among the North-eastern Turkic forms that Alparslan points out in some of the tuyughs. The source does not give the metre. The poet's divan, its editions and his other poems are discussed in Kadı Burhaneddin: Literary Persona, Divan and Poems.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The tuyugh speaks in the voice of a ruler. The first line says that Syria and Rum, that is, the Mamluk lands and Anatolia, have become "musaħħar", have submitted. The contrast of iron and wax in the second line is a simple and effective example of antithesis: to be hard as iron towards the enemy and soft as wax towards the friend describes the ideal bearing of a ruler through two concrete materials. The fourth line repeats the same contrast with the words "mübarek" (blessed, auspicious) and "şûm" (ill-omened).

There is a fine order between the second and fourth lines. In the second line the enemy is named first and then the friend; in the fourth the order is reversed, and the friend comes first, then the enemy. The two lines are thus built like mirror images of each other; this crosswise arrangement is our own observation. The words "let everyone go his own way" in the third line are a challenge: friend and enemy alike know who the ruler is and will act accordingly.

Historical Context

Özkan reads this tuyugh as the expression of the alliance Kadı Burhaneddin formed with the Mamluk sultan Barquq and the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I (the Thunderbolt); in his rendering he understands the first line as "it fell to us to conquer Syria and Rum". According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, relations between Kadı Burhaneddin and the Mamluks were long strained, and Mamluk forces besieged Sivas for forty days in 1388; this enmity, however, turned to friendship when Timur came to the Middle East, and after October 1393 Bayezid, Barquq, Toktamış and Kadı Burhaneddin formed an alliance against Timur. That Özkan interprets the line as an alliance although its literal sense speaks of subjugation suggests that the poet described even an alliance in a language of superiority; this last assessment is our own.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Online sources