Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Kâbe’nin yolları uludan ulu
Efendim ayırma doğrudan yolu
Kâbe’yi Hak eden Muhammed Ali
Onlara kalmayan bize mi kaldı
Kâbe’nin yolları misk ile amber
Başına dolamış al yeşil çember
Kâbe’yi yaptıran Halil Peygamber
Onlara kalmayan bize mi kaldı
Ver sazın sahip Âşık Kul Hüseyin
İnayet Allah’tan kime Hüseyin
Çöllerin bekçisi İmam Hüseyin
Onlara kalmayan bize mi kaldı

In English

1. The roads to the Kaaba are great indeed; my lord, do not part me from the straight road. Those who made the Kaaba the Truth are Muhammad and Ali; the world that did not remain theirs, will it remain ours.

2. The roads to the Kaaba are scented with musk and amber; it has wound a red and green band about its head. The one who had the Kaaba built is Abraham the Friend of God; the world that did not remain theirs, will it remain ours.

3. Give him your saz, its master is Âşık Kul Hüseyin; grace is from God, to whomever it falls, Hüseyin. The guardian of the deserts is Imam Hüseyin; the world that did not remain theirs, will it remain ours.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

In the last quatrain the word "Hüseyin" is repeated in three lines running and serves both as the poet's name and for Imam Hüseyin; the pen name itself has the form "Âşık Kul Hüseyin". Each quatrain of this short deyiş, only three quatrains long, closes on the refrain "Onlara kalmayan bize mi kaldı" (what did not remain theirs, will it remain ours). The rhymes lie in the first three lines: "ulu, yolu, Ali", "amber, çember, Peygamber", "Hüseyin, Hüseyin, Hüseyin". The metre is the eleven-syllable syllabic measure; Işık classes the text as a güzelleme. It was handed down by two of Işık's informants from the Zeytünlü family: Ali Zeytünlü, known as Derviş Zefil Ali, and Hüseyin Zeytünlü, known as Âşık Kara Hüseyin.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The short deyiş expresses the transience of the world through the image of the Kaaba. The roads to the Kaaba are great and scented with musk and amber, and a red and green band is wound about its head; Abraham, the Friend of God, had it built, and Muhammad and Ali made it the Truth. The refrain sets a single question against all this sacred greatness: if the world did not remain theirs, will it remain ours. This question is an established expression in folk poetry recalling death and the transience of the world.

The last quatrain adds a different voice to the poem. The line "give him your saz, its master is Âşık Kul Hüseyin" suggests a moment in a gathering when the saz is handed to the poet and he is asked to sing a deyiş. The threefold repetition of the name Hüseyin is a play on words: the âşık Kul Hüseyin, the one to whom grace falls, and Imam Hüseyin, guardian of the deserts of Karbala, are linked by the same name. Işık writes that even Kul Hüseyin's name carries the marks of the Alevi understanding and that the poet was seen as a "gerçek", a true one, who enacted the uprising of Hüseyin within his own being.

Bibliography

Online sources