Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün

Gel meclise ṣofî hele bir diňle bu sazı
Fehm et ki bu sazıň nedir Allah niyâzı

In English

1. O ascetic, come to the gathering and just listen to this saz; understand what this saz (says): it is a supplication to God.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kalenderî. The kalenderî is one of the forms minstrels composed in aruz and is generally written in the pattern "mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün". Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the opening couplet of this poem. The rhyme is the "-âzı" sound in "sazı / niyâzı". The identification of the metre is ours; as is usual in the aruz poems of folk poets, some syllables may not fit the pattern exactly. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet enters the old debate between the saz and the ascetic. The "sofu" here is the formalist zealot who disapproves of music and of convivial gatherings; in divan and folk poetry the rind (free spirit) and the sofu are often set against each other. The poet invites the ascetic to the gathering and asks him to understand that the sound of the saz is in fact an "Allah niyâzı", a supplication to God. This reflects the minstrels' view of the saz as a sacred instrument and of the word sung to the saz as a form of remembrance (zikr). The Bektaşî practice of calling the saz the "stringed Qur'an" belongs to the same understanding; but that expression does not occur in this couplet.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the name of Tokatlı Nûrî in the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019; with thirty-six poems, Nûrî is the poet the cönk gives most space to. Drawing on Orhan Bilgin, Hakverdioğlu relates that Eyüb Sabrî of Merzifon often invited Nûrî to Merzifon; Nûrî's weight in the cönk can be explained by this friendship. Since other minstrels also used the pen name Nûrî, it is not certain that every Nûrî poem in the cönk belongs to Tokatlı Nûrî; the article attributes these poems to Tokatlı Nûrî. For the poet's life and his connection with Amasya, see the page on Tokatlı Nûrî. The poem is on page 25 of the cönk and page 549 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources