Tags
Ali Baba, Ali Haydar Avcı, Annemarie Schimmel, Aşık Ali İzzet, Feyzullah Çınar, Gölpınarlı, Hızır Paşa, Mansur al-Hallaj, Pertev Naili Boratav, İbrahim Aslanoğlu
A song dealing with the demise of Pir Sultan as he proceeds to his execution while Hızır Paşa – the bloody tyrant referreed to – orders the people to cast stones at him. Legend has it that Pir Sultan’s friend, Ali Baba, tossed a rose; a dissembling act that wounds Pir Sultan the deepest. This of course, as Gölpınarlı and Boratav (1943) the first to publish the text note, revisits the story associated with the martyrdom of Mansur al-Hallaj in 922 when his friend Shibli threw a rose when the people began to stone Hallaj. As Annemarie Schimmel describes it (Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 1975), when Shibli did this Hallaj sighed since those who threw stones did not know what they were doing, but Shibli did. And this has much the same theme in the Pir Sultan context – it is the betrayal that wounds.
Aslanoğlu (1984) rejects this as a Pir Sultan text and claims it as a composite of verses from Aşık Hüseyin and Tarsuslu Sıkdı. I have not been able to locate the full text of Aşık Hüseyin although Avcı gives a mahlas verse from Aşık Hüseyin (probably 18th century) from a mecmua provided by Adil Ali Atalay that reads: ‘Hüseyin’im eyder can göğe ağmaz / Hakk’tan emr’olmazsa ırahmet yağmaz / Şu illerin sözü hiç bana değmez / İlle dostun sözü yareler beni‘ (Ali Haydar Avcı Osmanlı gızlı tarihinden Pir Sultan Abdal, 2006 p. 342-343). Tarsuslu Sıdkı Aslanoğlu refers to Aşık Sıdkı (Pervane) and a text is found in the major collection of Sıdkı’s lyrics compiled by his grandson Muhsin Gül (1984) that bears some similarity. Indeed a number of Sıdkı’s lyrics do bear the language of some of the most renowned lyrics attributed to Pir Sultan including Gelin canlar bir olalım and Kul olayım kalem tutan eller. The source of the text published in Gölpınarlı and Boratav is Aşık Ali İzzet who was forthcoming in his openness about attributing texts as he felt appropriate (see again Ali Haydar Avcı’s monumental work Osmanlı gızlı tarihinden Pir Sultan Abdal (2006 p. 236-351) for a consideration of Ali İzzet’s influence in respect to these lyrics). So Aslanoğlu’s assertion may have merit – but only so far, since it remains without question an important and fixed text of the Pir Sultan of tradition. It is sung to a fine tune, and perhaps the finest recording is that by Feyzullah Çınar made in Paris for Radio France in 1971 under the sponsorship of the late Irene Melikoff.
Pir Sultan Abdal: ‘Şu kanlı zalimin ettiği işler’
Translation: Paul Koerbin
Those blood tainted tyrant’s deeds
Make me moan like a lonely nightingale
Stones rain down like a torrent upon me
But it is the friend’s mere pinch that wounds me
Friend and foe are revealed in my dire straits
My troubles that once were ten are now fifty
The order for my death is fixed to my neck
So let them strike me down or let them hang me
I am Pir Sultan Abdal my soul does not flee
If not decreed by God mercy does not rain down
The stones of those strangers will never touch me
But it’s the rose of that friend that wounds me
————————————————————————————————————-
Şu kanlı zalimin ettiği işler
Garip bülbül gibi zareler beni
Yağmur gibi yağar başıma taşlar
Dostun bir fiskesi yaralar beni
Dar günümde dost düşmanım bell’oldu
On derdim var ise şimdi ell’oldu
Ecel fermanı boynuma takıldı
Gerek asa gerek vuralar beni
Pir Sultan Abdal’ım can göğe ağmaz
Hak’tan emr olmazsa irahmet yağmaz
Şu illerin taşı hiç bana değmez
İlle dostun gülü yaralar beni
