This deyiş takes its name from two Arabic words, "men aref", and the line that reached the card says that the gnostics read from a lesson: "Men araf dersinden okur arifler". Sung together by Davut Aslan and Mehmet İnan in Zigala on 5 July 1943, the deyiş was put on disc towards the end of the team's recordings in that village. The last recording entered under the name Zigala in the catalogue is a folk song that comes immediately after it.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not found in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire
  • Source persons: Davut Aslan (saz; born Rumi 1308, i.e. 1892-1893; farmer) and Mehmet İnan (saz; born Rumi 1327, i.e. 1911-1912; farmer); both from the village of Girap in the Ezine subdistrict
  • Place and date of collection: village of Zigala (today Aydınca), Amasya; 5 July 1943 (place and date in square brackets in the catalogue)
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen
  • Genre: deyiş
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: registered as anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1111/A-2
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3608; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

Men araf dersinden okur arifler

In English: "The gnostics read from the lesson of 'men aref'." "Men aref" means "the one who knows" or "whoever knew" in Arabic; the title coincides with the first two words of the saying "men arefe nefsehû fe-kad arefe rabbehû" (he who knows himself knows his Lord), often quoted in Sufi texts. A single line does not show whether the deyiş works on this saying. The spelling "araf" also calls to mind the A'râf of the Qur'an, but the fact that the title is written "Aref" makes the first reading the closer one. Its other lines and its notation are in none of the known publications. The sound recording is on side A of disc 1111.

Story

The poet of the deyiş is unknown; there is no minstrel's name in the title, and no account of its making has been recorded. The disc's own history comes with several gaps. In Kaya's list, disc numbers written in parentheses mark recordings whose cards are not among the copies at TRT; the first place on side A of disc 1111 and the first two places on side B are in this condition, and their contents are unknown.

Musical Features

Both singers played the saz in the recording; just as the card does not make clear which of them sang the deyiş, or whether one saz or both accompanied it, so its mode, metre and melodic structure remain unknown. After Men Aref, Hüseyin Kılıç's song "Gidiyom Degme" was put on the disc. That is the last recording the catalogue assigns to Zigala; after the two places of unknown content on side B, the disc continues with recordings not of the village but of "Amasya province".

Performers and Recordings

The song that follows the deyiş on the disc went into the TRT repertoire as Gidiyom Deme Bana; Men Aref, so far as is known, lives on only in the pair's 1943 performance. The mersiye the same pair sang from Garip also stands in the repertoire, as Kaf u Nun Hitabı İzhar Olmadan. The deyiş and semahs of Zigala are among the subjects of The Melody of Yeşilırmak, the article on the melodies of Amasya.

Bibliography

Online sources