Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Gel gönül gidelim dost illerine
Aşkınan gidende yol incinir mi
Sultanı bilirse kulun halini
Mushafın yazmaya el incinir mi
Mushafın Kübradır vucüd-ı insan
Allamet Esma’yı [b]uyurdu süphan
İlm-i müsemmayı zikreder lisan
Hal ile söyleyen dil incinir mi
Dilde ikrar gerek tekrar olmasın
Güllerimiz has bahçede solmasın
Kelp-i rakip andelibi görmesin
Bülbülün sesinden gül incinir mi
Güllük gülistanlık dostun cemali
Aslı pak olanlar bulur kemali
Su balığı sakın öldürmen anı
Balık oynayınca göl incinir mi
Kul Fakır’ım marifet burasında
Kulluk hatmolunda ba’yı isminde
Yüz on dört surede mevcut Yasinde
Hakikate eren hal incinir mi

In English

1. Come, my heart, let us go to the lands of the Friend; when one travels with love, is the road hurt? If the Sultan knows the state of his servant, is the hand hurt by writing the Mushaf?

2. The human body is the greatest Mushaf; the All-Glorious declared that He taught Adam all the names. The tongue recalls the knowledge of the things named; is the tongue that speaks through its state hurt?

3. There must be a vow on the tongue, let the pledge not be broken and given again; let our roses not fade in the private garden. Let the cur of a rival not see the nightingale; is the rose hurt by the nightingale's song?

4. The Friend's face is a rose garden; those whose origin is pure attain perfection. Never kill the fish in the water; when the fish plays, is the lake hurt?

5. I am Kul Fakır, true knowledge is here. The second line can be read in two ways: servanthood is completed, or sealed, in the letter "bâ" of the basmala and in the name. This secret is in the hundred and fourteen suras, in Yâsin; is the state that has reached the truth hurt?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The deyiş is a koşma of five quatrains in the eleven-syllable syllabic metre. The last line of each quatrain ends with the redif "incinir mi" (is it hurt?); the words before the redif, "yol, el, dil, gül, göl, hal" (road, hand, tongue, rose, lake, state), form the rhyme. These rhyme words are monosyllabic and very close in sound, which has much to do with the deyiş being easy to remember. The pen name appears in the last quatrain. The syllable count is ours. In the second quatrain the word that appears corrupted in the source as ".uyurdu" has been completed from the sense as "[b]uyurdu" (declared); the letter in square brackets is our addition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the quatrains of the deyiş end with the same question, and each sets up a comparison whose answer is "it is not hurt": the road travelled with love, the hand that writes the Mushaf, the rose that hears the nightingale's song, the lake in which the fish plays. İsa Çolaker reads this question as saying that the gnostics who seek God are not hurt by the trials they endure, that hardship on God's path is natural for the believer. Fatih Çelebi likewise interprets "dost illeri" (the lands of the Friend) as the road to God and the line "Güllük gülistanlık dostun cemali" as a description of God's light as a rose garden.

The second quatrain is the densest part of the deyiş in thought. The "Mushaf-ı Kübrâ", the greatest Mushaf, is in Alevi-Bektashi thought man himself: if the written copy of the Qur'an is a Mushaf, man is the true book written by God's own hand. The phrase "allemel esmâ" refers to the verse in the sura Baqara stating that God taught Adam all the names. Man's tongue thus becomes a tongue that recalls the knowledge of the names God taught him. The "bâ" in the last quatrain is the letter "b" in the basmala, counted the first letter of the Qur'an; in the Sufi tradition it is said that the whole Qur'an is gathered in the Fatiha, the Fatiha in the basmala, and the basmala in the dot of the "bâ".

In the third quatrain the words "dilde ikrar" (a vow on the tongue) and "tekrar olmasın" (let it not be repeated) say that the vow given on entering the path must be given once and not broken. The likening of the rival to a cur and the nightingale and rose are common motifs of both divan and folk poetry.

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