Sıdkî Baba was a Bektashi poet and zakir trained at the Hacıbektaş lodge, who composed his deyiş under the pen name Pervane in his youth and Sıdkı in his maturity. Born in 1865 in the Tarsus area, he went to Hacıbektaş at the age of twelve, served the çelebis Feyzullah and Cemaleddin for many years, and in 1894 settled in the village of Harız (today Gümüştepe) near Merzifon, where he lived until his death in 1928. He is therefore also known in the region as Harızlı Sıdkî, Sıdkî of Harız. The poet Ali Bâkî Gül, who served as imam in Harız, was his son.

Life

According to what Necdet Kurt relates from Ali Cem Akbulut, Sıdkî Baba's real name was Zeynel Abidin. Because of the internal unrest of the 1800s his family migrated from Malatya to Silifke, then gave up the idea of returning and settled in the village of Yenice near Tarsus; Sıdkî Baba was born in this village and received his first education there. According to an account based on the book Sıdkı Baba Hayatı ve Divanından Örnekler, published in 1984 by his grandson Muhsin Gül, his lineage goes back to the Dedekargın tribe of the Bozok branch of the Oghuz; he belonged to a family known as the Hacı Ahmetler, from the branch of the tribe that settled in the village of Çerme on the Tohma river in Malatya.

According to Kurt, he began to sing deyiş at the age of six and to write them under the pen name Pervane from the age of twelve; in the same years he learned to play the bağlama, and later he became known for playing the twelve-stringed çöğür. The account based on Muhsin Gül tells of his going to Hacıbektaş as follows: at twelve Pervane asked his mother's permission, and she refused, saying he was too young; one day he ran away without telling anyone, and a horseman his mother sent after him turned him back on the road; some time later he ran away again and this time reached Hacıbektaş. Because he repeats in his deyiş that he went to the lodge in the year 1293 of the Hijra and at the age of twelve, his year of birth can be reckoned as 1281 (1865).

At the lodge he served first the head of the lodge, Feyzullah Çelebi (1811-1878), and after his death his son Cemaleddin Çelebi (1862-1921). According to Kurt, Cemaleddin Çelebi appointed him his deputy by a written document and sent him to places he could not go himself. At the end of fourteen years of service Cemaleddin Çelebi said that, because of his loyalty, the pen name Sıdkı (the sincere one) would suit him better than Pervane, and so the pen name changed. In the following years he travelled almost the whole of Anatolia on behalf of the order, and in 1894 he settled in the village of Harız. When his first wife died in 1911, he married again in Harız. The notables of Merzifon invited him, with certain promises, to a post in Merzifon, but he did not accept. He stayed in Harız until his death and considered himself a man of Harız in every respect.

Family

His son Ali Bâkî Gül (1897-1956), according to Hasan Kaplan and Büşra Esmer, was born in Harız and took his lessons in poetry from his father, who looked after his education for thirty-one years. At seventeen Ali Bâkî went to visit his father, who was in Sivas with Cemaleddin Çelebi; the Çelebi, having read the first deyiş the young man wrote there, laughed and told Sıdkî Baba, "Sıdkı, your son will surpass you." Muhsin Gül, who gathered Sıdkî Baba's life and poems in a book, was Ali Bâkî's son and thus Sıdkî Baba's grandson.

His Tie to Amasya

Sıdkî Baba spent the last thirty-four years of his life in the village of Harız near Merzifon and died there. He is the minstrel named "Sıdkî" or "Sıdki" in the lists of Gaziler Ovacığı minstrels by Haluk Yücel and by Şerife Özer and Mustafa Topal. His deyiş also name Amasya directly: the long deyiş in which he describes to the cranes the road to Hacıbektaş begins in Amasya, at the post of Hamdullah Çelebi, the head of the Hacıbektaş lodge who was exiled here after 1826 and died here, and continues by way of Gümüşhacıköy, Merzifon and Harız. In another deyiş he names the çelebis Hamdullah, Feyzullah and Cemaleddin together.

His Poetry

Sıdkî Baba's poems are deyiş, devriye, düvaz-ı imam and mersiye composed in syllabic metre in the koşma and semai forms. Their most distinctive features are open devotion to the çelebis of Hacıbektaş, a symbolism of letters and the dot, the Bektashi view that reads the beloved's face through the suras of the Qur'an, and dated records of his own life: in his deyiş he wrote down his going to the lodge with the date 1293, the year his çile was fulfilled with 1308, and his forty-seven years of service with 1340. The deyiş under the pen name Pervane belong to his early period, those under Sıdkı to his later years.

In this category twenty-two of his poems are given on separate pages. Twenty-one are taken from a compilation site that cites Muhsin Gül's book; according to the site's note, one of these comes from another source. The Karbala elegy is taken from Necdet Kurt's paper; the example of a devriye given by Kurt is the same, with small differences, as the text on the compilation site. Since Sıdkî Baba died in 1928, his poems are not under copyright protection.

The State of the Sources

The sources differ on Sıdkî Baba's real name: Kurt and the account based on Muhsin Gül say "Zeynel Abidin", whereas Kaplan and Esmer, relying on Yusuf Turan Günaydın's study, call him "Yusuf Sıdkî Baba". The spellings "Sıtkı Pervane" and "Sıtkı Baba" also appear in the Ali Bâkî Gül entry of the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü. His birthplace is the village of Yenice near Tarsus in Kurt, while the account based on Muhsin Gül stresses the family's past in Malatya. A further difficulty is the date of the pen name: while the pen name Pervane appears to have been given up around 1890, the crane deyiş that mentions Harız still bears the pen name Pervane; it is possible that his tie with Harız began before he settled there, or that the old pen name was also used later. We have not been able to see Muhsin Gül's book or Akbulut's book directly.

Chronology

1865 (1281): Born in the village of Yenice near Tarsus.

1876-1877 (1293): Goes to the Hacıbektaş lodge at the age of twelve.

1878: Feyzullah Çelebi dies; Sıdkî begins to serve Cemaleddin Çelebi.

1890-1891 (1308): According to one of his deyiş his çile is fulfilled; after fourteen years of service he receives the pen name Sıdkı.

1894: Settles in the village of Harız near Merzifon.

1897: His son Ali Bâkî Gül is born in Harız.

1911: His first wife dies; he marries again in Harız.

1921-1922 (1340): The deyiş of thanks in which he says he has served his guides for forty-seven years.

1928: Dies in Harız.

1984: His grandson Muhsin Gül publishes his life and examples of his poems in a book.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Necdet Kurt, "Zakirlik Geleneğinin Kökenleri ve Amasya Yöresinin İz Bırakan Zakirleri", Geçmişten Günümüze Uluslararası Dinî Mûsikî Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı, Amasya: Amasya University, 2017, pp. 116-118. https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00310/2017/2017_KURTN.pdf
  • Hasan Kaplan, Büşra Esmer, "Cumhuriyet Devrinde Arap Harfleriyle Yazılmış Bir Mesnevi: Ali Baki Gül'ün Ashâb-ı Kehf Kıssası", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi, 9(19), 2023, pp. 55-57. https://doi.org/10.28981/hikmet.1327818
  • Haluk Yücel, "Türk Halk Müziğinde Âşıklık Geleneği: Amasya Âşıkları", TURAN-SAM Uluslararası Bilimsel Hakemli Dergisi, 10(39), 2018, p. 256. https://www.turansam.org/TURAN-SAM_39.pdf

Books

  • Şebnem Şerife Ördek, "Ali Baki, Ali Baki Gül", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 26.06.2019 (updated 05.12.2020). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/ali-baki-ali-baki-gul
  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, Istanbul: KaraMavi Yayınları, 2010, p. 282 (as quoted in Kurt 2017).

Online sources