Yunus Emre: The Sufi Poet in Love One of the most famous poets
FOREWORD The commemoration by UNESCO in 1991 of the 750th anniversary of the birth of the Anatolian Sufi poet, Yunus Emre (ca. 1241–1321) and in 2007 of the 800th anniversary of the birth of another Anatolian Sufi poet, Rumi (1207– 1273), has brought increased international acclaim to both of these celebrated figures. Yet rarely has Yunus Emre been considered in terms of the Islamic civilizational context he shared with Rumi in an era when Muslim thinkers of the stature of Ibn Arabi (1165– 1240) and Fakhruddin Iraqi (1213–1289) were drawn to the intellectual and artistic centers of Seljukid Anatolia. Both within Turkey and without, Yunus Emre has been portrayed as an unlettered poet of love whose vibrant poems lived across the centuries in the oral traditions of the unsophisticated. In the present work, Zekeriya Baskal seeks to rectify this limited understanding which thwarts easy recognition of Rumi and Yunus as figures who shared the same philosophical and cultural environment, but used different languages, Persian and Turkish, and different genres of poetry, mesnevi (or mathnawi, poems composed in rhyming couplets) and ilahi (devotional hymn), to express their message. Granted, the affinity of these two great poets has been stressed in the past. In a brief essay Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar (1901–1962), the prominent intellectual, poet and novelist takes as a given “the closeness in sensibility and mentality of Yunus to his renowned contemporary Rumi,” but holds that this intellectual closeness cannot diminish the distinctiveness that sets Yunus apart as poet of unique singularity. ( Edebiyat Uzerine Makaleler, 1969 p. 141). Speaking in more general terms, the well-known scholar of Islamic mysticism, Annemarie Schimmel (1922–2003) has pointed out Yunus Emre: The Sufi Poet in Love that: “In the case of Yunus Emre, one cannot possibly deny the orthodox Islamic foundation of all his thought, although some modern Turkish interpreters are inclined to forget the Islamic roots of his poetry. The Qur’an is for him the basis of all wisdom.” ( Halman, ed. 1981 p. 65). Nevertheless, there continues to be a disinclination to link Rumi and Yunus and a tendency to lift Yunus out of his Muslim context altogether. Zekeriya Baskal addresses this situation by drawing on recent developments in reception and reader response theory to propose a series of explanations. He provides an analytic overview of the most prominent interpreters and schools of interpretation that have characterized the reception of Yunus Emre’s poetry in the 20th century, while presenting evidence from across the centuries that Yunus Emre had a place not only in the oral tradition, but also among important segments of the Ottoman elites, including composers, poets, and the writers of philosophical commentaries. Furthermore, Baskal indicates that Yunus Emre was embraced as an exemplary figure by a diversity of Sufi orders and that appreciation of his poetry and its spiritual message was not exclusive to the Bektashi order of dervishes. All of this is set in the context of the historical and social conditions of Anatolia in which the Seljukid centers of learning continued to flourish, despite the devastations following the Mongol-Ilkhanid victory at Kosedag in 1243. Most importantly, Baskal takes into account Yunus Emre’s poetic output in its entirety and demonstrates that its dominant themes require analysis in terms of the philosophical concepts of Islamic mysticism that were current in the centers of learning of his day. Thus, Baskal’s analysis, which takes as a basic resource the 1990 critical edition by Mustafa Tatci, is consonant with Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s much earlier estimation that the individual poems of Yunus “…which relate the mystical system with all of its subtleties and his Risale-i Nushiyye (allegorical treatise) itself, which was one of the important works of his period, show us in clarity a truly exceptional mind and superior intellectuality nourished on all the knowledge of his time.” Tanpinar continues his thought by stating, “However, the faculty of mind and intellect was not Yunus’ dominant quality. He was before all else a man of the heart. He was one of those who found human fortune within himself in all its pain and sublimeness.” ( Edebiyat Uzerine Makaleler, 1969 p. 141). It would be virtually impossible to find anyone, regardless of interpretive framework, who would disagree with this latter part of Tanpinar’s estimation, even if they were to disregard or fail to comprehend the former. Ultimately, it may prove to be that Yunus Emre will remain what readers choose to make of him, as they relate to the power and beauty of his poems. We are fortunate, however, to have available the present work, which for the first time locates Yunus Emre in his own historical and cultural context, while providing an informative and insightful analysis of the multiplicity of competing modes in the interpretation of his poetry, a first step perhaps towards a reconciliation of them. Sarah G. Moment Atis Professor of Turkish University of Wisconsin-Madison
Foreword | vii |
Introduction | xi |
Note on Transliteration | xiv |
Acknowledgments | xv |
Chapter 1: The Age in Which Yunus Emre Lived and | |
His Place in the Sufi Tradition of His Time | 1 |
The Social Context of the 13th and 14th Centuries | 3 |
An Overview of the Seljukid Period | 4 |
An Introductory Overview of Sufism | 15 |
The Brotherhoods with Which Yunus Emre can be Associated | 22 |
The Bektashi Order | 22 |
The Malami-Qalandari Order | 30 |
Yunus Emre’s Relationship with Rumi | 36 |
Chapter 2: An Analysis of Yunus Emre’s Poetry | 47 |
The Didactic Function of Sufi Poetry in the 13th and 14th Centuries | 49 |
Thematic Classification of the Poetry of Yunus Emre | 56 |
An Analysis of the Poems of Yunus Emre | 67 |
The Language of Yunus Emre | 77 |
Chapter 3: Reception of Yunus Emre | 81 |
Reception Theory/Reader Response Criticism | 83 |
Reception and Impact of Yunus Emre in the Ottoman Period | 90 |
Parallel Poems | 98 |
Commentaries | 105 |
Music | 110 |
Reception of Yunus Emre in the Modern Period (1918–today) | 113 |
The Nationalist Mode of Interpretation | 113 |
The Heterodox Mode of Interpretation | 121 |
Humanist Mode of Interpretation | 129 |
Individual Interpretations | 132 |
Conclusion | 143 |
A Selection of Poems from Yunus Emre’s Divan | 147 |
Appendixes | 159 |
Notes | 165 |
Select Bibliography | 189 |
Index | 199 |
Zekeriya Baskal (Baskal) is a professor of Turkish LIterature teaching at Gaziosmanpasa and Ipek Universities in Turkey. He writes on Turkish literature, Sufism, and Turkish-Armenian relations.