Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Kemâl’in var olsun Mustafa Paşa
Irakıplar ölsün hele sen çok yaşa
Ortayı mâl ettin hazır ol başa
Vakit tamam oldu meydan geliyor
Meydanda bell’olur er ile körler
Düzde menzil almaz dikine zorlar
Çoktan geçtiyidi hayır ü şerler
Islahat memuru sultan geliyor
Sultan olan kula bulmaz kusuru
Hicaz’ı Mekke’yi bekle Mısır’ı
Sıdkile tutarsan alun yesiri
İsmail’e Hak’tan kurban geliyor
Kurban olan Ehl-i Beyt yoluna
Kem bakmayın siyasinin haline
“Allah-ü Ekber”i getir diline
Binine yetecek bir can geliyor
Canını verenler cananın bulur
Canını sevenler geriye kalır
Acaba onların hali nic’olur
Zülfikar elinde aslan geliyor
Yedi kral olsun Hak muin ise
Esef çekme yetmiş dahi gelirse
Onların asleri topu var ise
Şükür bize Hak’tan bürhan geliyor
Hani padişahlık nerede kaldı
Zevk ü sefa ile aklını aldı
Yola kem bakanlar belasın buldu
Dünya başlarına zindan geliyor
Tanrı’nın aslanı Hazreti Ali
Ta ezel Kandil’de kurdu bu yolu
Sıdkile tutarsan yetürün eli
Nice bin dertliye derman geliyor
Bâ noktası gönüllerinden çıktı
Ecnebi kızları evini yıktı
Sekiz yüz cariye belini büktü
Sandılar ki hergün bayram geliyor
Bilemedi milletin halini
İtalyan kızına yaktı balonu
Başa geçirmişler elin körünü
Halbuki hakkında ferman geliyor
KUL FAKIR’ım fermanını okudu
Andelibim dost bağında şakıdı
Aklı selim gönül evi pak idi
Mümin müslümana seyran geliyor

In English

1. Mustafa Paşa, may your perfection endure; may your rivals die, and may you live long. The third line is unclear; it can be read as meaning: you have taken things in hand, be ready to take the lead. The time has come, the field of battle is coming.

2. In the field the brave man and the blind are known; no goal is reached on the level, it forces the upward climb. Good and evil had long since passed; the sultan charged with reform is coming.

3. One who is a sultan finds no fault in a servant; wait for the Hejaz, for Mecca, for Egypt. If you hold firm with sincerity you will take the captive; a sacrifice is coming from God for Ismail.

4. Do not look with an evil eye on the state of the statesman, one who is a sacrifice on the path of the Ehl-i Beyt. Bring "Allahu Akbar" to your tongue; a soul that will suffice for a thousand is coming.

5. Those who give their lives find their beloved; those who love their lives stay behind. I wonder what will become of them; a lion is coming with Zülfikar in his hand.

6. Once God is our helper let seven kings come; do not grieve even if seventy come. If they have soldiers and cannons, thank God, a proof is coming to us from God.

7. Where is the sultanate now, what has become of it; pleasure and revelry took its mind. Those who looked with an evil eye on the path have met their doom; the world is becoming a dungeon over their heads.

8. The Lion of God, Ali, founded this path in pre-eternity in the Kandil. If you hold firm with sincerity you will reach him; a cure is coming to many thousands of sufferers.

9. The dot of the "bâ" left their hearts; foreign girls wrecked his house. Eight hundred concubines bent his back; they thought every day a festival was coming.

10. He could not understand the state of the nation. The second line is unclear; it may describe extravagance for the sake of a foreign woman. They put a stranger's blind man at the head; yet a decree is coming against him.

11. I am Kul Fakır, I have read his decree; my nightingale has sung in the Friend's garden. His mind was sound, the house of his heart was pure; a feast for the eyes is coming to the believing Muslim.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The deyiş is a koşma of eleven quatrains in the eleven-syllable syllabic metre; four lines are a syllable short or long. The last line of each quatrain ends with the redif "geliyor" (is coming); the words before the redif, "meydan, sultan, kurban, can, aslan, bürhan, zindan, derman, bayram, ferman, seyran", form the rhyme with the sound "-an". The pen name appears in the last quatrain. The syllable count is ours. The source from which we take the text gives the deyiş under the heading "a deyiş about Atatürk". Some lines of the deyiş, especially the ninth and tenth quatrains, which refer to political events, are not clear in the form given in the source and have been rendered with caution.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş shows how a folk âşık saw the War of Independence and its aftermath through the images of his own world of faith. Mustafa Kemal Paşa is called "the sultan charged with reform", "a soul that will suffice for a thousand" and "a lion coming with Zülfikar in his hand". Zülfikar is Ali's sword and "lion" is Ali's epithet in Alevi poetry; the âşık thus portrays the new leader as a hero on Ali's path. The words "Yedi kral olsun" (let seven kings come) and "yetmiş dahi gelirse" (even if seventy come) in the sixth quatrain say that, whatever the number of enemies, there is nothing to fear once God is one's helper. Fatih Çelebi reads the lines "Kul Fakır'ım fermanını okudu / Andelibim dost bağında şakıdı" in the last quatrain as words with which the âşık places Atatürk in the "dost bağı", the Friend's garden that in Sufism is the centre of divine love.

The seventh, ninth and tenth quatrains are a criticism directed at the old order. The line "Hani padişahlık nerede kaldı" refers to the end of the sultanate, and the lines "Zevk ü sefa ile aklını aldı", "Ecnebi kızları evini yıktı" and "Sekiz yüz cariye belini büktü" voice charges brought against palace life among the people. Whether these lines aim at a particular sultan or at the sultanate in general is not said plainly in the deyiş.

Historical Context

The exact date of the deyiş is not known. The line "Hani padişahlık nerede kaldı" suggests that it was sung after the abolition of the sultanate on 1 November 1922; the address to Mustafa Kemal as "Paşa" and the images of war such as the battlefield, soldiers and cannons, on the other hand, carry the atmosphere of the years of the War of Independence. It can therefore be estimated that the deyiş was sung between 1922 and the mid-1920s; this is an inference. Kul Fakir's love for Mustafa Kemal is also preserved in local memory in a story: at a gathering in the village of Diphacı the âşık poured onto the ashes of the hearth the cups offered in the names of two saints, but when the third was offered "for the love of Mustafa Kemal" he drank it and said that, if it were possible, he would give him years of his own life. Fedâî Baba, another Hak âşığı of Amasya, also has deyiş sung for Atatürk.

Bibliography

Books

Online sources