Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Kalktı Malatya’dan huruç eyledi
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal
Ben atamın kanın alırım dedi
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal
Şemmas seyirinde gördü düşünü
Dua kıldı hak onarsın işini
İndi kesti Mihriban’ın başını
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal
Battal da haykırdı meydana girdi
Naranın sesi asumana erdi
Badik’in gözünü oydu çıkardı
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal
Otuz altı arşın kâh dü kameti
Gören fakirlerde alır heybeti
Tevabi lalesi aşlardır atı
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal
Hak nazar kılmıştır Seyit Gazi’ye
Gaf Dağı’nda koparır tak bazuyu
Gör ne işledi Akabe cazuyu
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal
Kul Hüseyn’im eydür dileğim budur
Övmüşte yaratmış ol gani kadir
Urumu İslam’a getiren budur
İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal

In English

1. Ibn-i Hüseyin Gazi Seyyid Battal rose from Malatya and set out on campaign; he said, "I will take vengeance for my father's blood".

2. Ibn-i Hüseyin Gazi Seyyid Battal saw his dream in the presence of Şemmas; he prayed that God might set his affairs right; he came down and cut off the head of Mihriban.

3. Battal gave a shout and entered the field; the sound of his war cry reached the skies; he gouged out the eye of Badik. Ibn-i Hüseyin Gazi Seyyid Battal.

4. His stature is thirty-six cubits tall; the poor who see him shrink from his awesome presence. (The third line of the fourth quatrain reads "Tevabi lalesi aşlardır atı" in the source, and its meaning has not been solved.) Ibn-i Hüseyin Gazi Seyyid Battal.

5. God has looked with favour upon Seyyid Gazi; on Mount Kaf he tears off the arm. See what he did to the one called Akabe, the whiner; Ibn-i Hüseyin Gazi Seyyid Battal.

6. I, Kul Hüseyin, say this is my wish; God, rich and mighty, created him praised. He is the one who brought Rum to Islam; Ibn-i Hüseyin Gazi Seyyid Battal.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The name of Seyyid Battal Gazi is the refrain: "İbni Hüseyin Gazi Seyit Battal" (Seyyid Battal Gazi, son of Hüseyin) stands in the second and fourth lines of the first quatrain and in the last line of the later ones. Işık classes the text as a battalname and a nefes. The first three lines rhyme as "düşünü, işini, başını", "girdi, erdi, çıkardı", "kameti, heybeti, atı", "Gazi'ye, bazuyu, cazuyu", "budur, kadir, budur". The six quatrains are in the eleven-syllable syllabic metre. In the last stanza the pen name (mahlas) takes the form "Kul Hüseyn'im". The informant is Halil Sezgin. The article glosses "cazu" as one who whines and frets and exaggerates his small pains to make himself seem important.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The Battalname is the epic folk narrative, told in Anatolia for centuries, of Seyyid Battal Gazi's wars against Byzantium and his heroic deeds. Kul Hüseyin's deyiş gives short episodes from this tradition: Battal setting out from Malatya to avenge his father Hüseyin Gazi, his dream and his prayer, his defeat of enemy champions, his war cry on the field, his gigantic stature and awesome presence, his heroism on Mount Kaf. The source does not explain to whom in the Battalname narrative the names Şemmas, Mihriban, Badik and Akabe in the deyiş correspond; we give these names as figures of the narrative without explanation.

The last quatrain states the true meaning of the deyiş: Battal Gazi is "the one who brought Rum to Islam". In the Alevi-Bektashi tradition Battal Gazi and his father Hüseyin Gazi are counted among the spiritual conquerors of Anatolia; in other deyiş of Kul Hüseyin too intercession is asked of Hüseyin Gazi. That a deyiş of the "battalname" kind was sung shows that heroic narratives were kept alive in the cem and gatherings alongside the mystical nefes.

Bibliography

Online sources