Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

İbrahim’im gelmez oldu selamın
Gel bizim ellere geze gel geze
Kesreti kem derler kaldır aradan
Devir gam yükünü çöze gel çöze
Gece gündüz aşk verip de çağırtan
Gafil olup çıkmayasın çığırdan
Çiğnenen kul oldu yükü ağırdan
Özün turap edip toza gel toza
Neye benzettiler bedende canı
Eğer arif isen fark eyle anı
Gel oyunbozanlar aldatır seni
Muhabbet ararsan kıza gel kıza
Didar aşığın sevgisi canda
Maşuğun hayali canda cananda
Şeriat tarikat marifet sende
Hakikat ilimden yaza gel yaza
Kul Hüseyin’im der kardaş duymadın mı?
Küfrümüz imana sayamadın mı?
Bu kadar cevrime doyamadın mı?
Dediler üstat Hak seze gel seze

In English

1. My İbrahim, your greetings have stopped coming; come to our land, come wandering. They call multiplicity evil, remove it from between us; the turning of time, come and untie the load of grief.

2. You who give love and call out night and day, may you not grow heedless and stray from the track of the road. The servant has been trampled, his load is heavy; make your self into earth and come in the dust.

3. To what have they likened the soul in the body; if you are a sage, discern it. Come, the spoilsports will deceive you; if you seek fellowship, come in fervour.

4. The love of the lover of the Face is in the soul; the image of the beloved is in the soul and in the beloved. The law, the order and gnosis are in you; come writing from the knowledge of truth.

5. I, Kul Hüseyin, say: brother, did you not hear; could you not count our unbelief as faith. Have you not had enough of all my suffering; they said "the master is God", come discerning it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Işık describes this deyiş as a song of fellowship spoken to his musahip İbrahim Derviş and made known to the distant musahip, and classes it as a güzelleme. The summons is made at the end of each quatrain by repeating the word "gel" (come) twice: "geze gel geze, çöze gel çöze, toza gel toza, kıza gel kıza, yaza gel yaza, seze gel seze" (come wandering, come untying, come in the dust, come in fervour, come writing, come discerning). The rhymes of the first three lines are: "çağırtan, çığırdan, ağırdan", "canı, anı, seni", "canda, cananda, sende", "duymadın mı, sayamadın mı, doyamadın mı". The lines have eleven syllables, and there are five quatrains; the pen name (mahlas) "Kul Hüseyin'im" comes in the last stanza. The form Işık quotes in the life section of his article shows small differences: there one reads "Devir gam yüzünü çöze gel çöze", "Gelin oyunbazdır aldatır seni" and "Hakikat ilminden yaza gel yaza". The text was collected from Ali İhsan Aktaş and Erdoğan Koç.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Işık tells the story of how this deyiş was composed from the accounts of his informants. After a cem ceremony, during the gathering of the dede and the seekers, Kul Hüseyin realised how much he missed his brother of the path, his musahip İbrahim, and, longing for him with all his heart, recited this deyiş. The whole gathering was overcome with emotion; among those present was Kul Hüseyin's disciple Kul Fakir. Some time later İbrahim Derviş, who lived forty kilometres away near Osmancık in Çorum, knocked at the door with his wife and came in saying "Hü, saints". Kul Hüseyin welcomed him with "welcome to your home, İbrahim". İbrahim Derviş took up the saz and answered the call with a deyiş, and Kul Fakir, moved by this exchange, sang an improvised deyiş as well.

Musahiplik is a brotherhood of the path in the Alevi community, in which two families pledge to be brothers for life. The deyiş expresses the power of this brotherhood to reach from heart to heart; in the region it is cited as an example of hearing what is said from afar. In content too it gives counsel of the path to the musahip: removing multiplicity, making one's self into earth, not being deceived by spoilsports, knowing that the law, the order and gnosis are within oneself, and reaching the knowledge of truth.

Bibliography

Online sources