Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Derdümüzüŋ Haķ bilür devâsını,
Ŧabaķda gördi düşmân behâsını,
Śıdķ ile oħ u ķılıç ururısaħ,
Ķoparalum Mıśr ili ķayasını.

In English

1. God knows the cure for our trouble; the enemy has seen his worth on the tray (according to Özkan: he has realised that his strength does not suffice).

2. If we shoot arrows and strike with the sword in sincerity, let us tear out the rock of the land of Egypt (let us uproot that land and seize it).

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 words "devâsını", "behâsını" and "ķayasını"; the rhyme is the sound "-âsı/-ası" and the redif (refrain) is the suffix "-nı". The third line stays free with "ururısaħ". The text is taken from Nevzat Özkan's article with the reference KBD 597/15-16 and comes from the tuyugh section of the divan; lines 9-10 of the same page hold the tuyugh "Dünyâ diyen gişiye bir vâyedür". 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 opens with a confidence that rests on God: God knows the cure for troubles. Özkan explains the words "Ŧabaķda gördi düşmân behâsını" in the second line as "the enemy realised the insufficiency of his strength"; word for word, the enemy has seen his worth, his price, on the tray. What image the word "ṭabaḳ" (tray) rests on here is not clear; a price set on a market tray or the pan of a pair of scales may be thought of, but these possibilities are our own. The words "behâ" (worth, price) and "devâ" (cure) come side by side in the rhyme and set up a link in sound between trouble and worth.

The third and fourth lines are a call to war. If arrows are shot and swords struck "śıdķ ile", that is, in sincerity and righteousness, the rock of the land of Egypt will be torn from its place. To tear out the rock is a strong metaphor (istiare) for uprooting a power that seems immovable; this description is our own. The naming of arrow and sword together recalls that the poet's world of war often enters his poetry; the elements of archery in the divan have also been the subject of a separate study by Fatih Bakırcı. The tuyugh begins with religious trust and ends with a political aim.

Historical Context

Özkan offers this tuyugh as a poem in which Kadı Burhaneddin voices his struggle with the Mamluks and prefers the name Egypt to that of Syria. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, when the Mamluk sultan Barquq had Halil Bey of the Dulkadirids killed, Kadı Burhaneddin took a hostile stance towards the Mamluks, protected Mintaş, the governor of Malatya who had rebelled against them, and set out to take Malatya; Barquq in turn sent a force under Yelboğa to Sivas, and Yelboğa besieged the city for a time and then withdrew. According to the same article, Mamluk forces besieged Sivas for forty days in 1388. Özkan relates from Uzunçarşılı that Yolboğa, governor of Aleppo, threatened at this time: "let me take Sivas from you, and perhaps the whole of the lands of Rum". The tuyugh fits these years of enmity; its date, however, is not known, and according to the TDV this enmity later turned to friendship with the coming of Timur.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Online sources