Kemterî Mahlaslı Bir Şairin Şiirlerinde Alevi-Bektaşi Unsurları
Authors: Kozikoğlu Merve 
Published: September 2023

Bektashism emerged in the 13th century and was associated with Alevism in Anatolia. Looking at the foundations and influences that make up Bektashism, it is seen that there are Hurufism, Shiism, and Sufism. The thoughts of Bektashi poets and their styles peculiar to their sects also affected their works. Although Bektashism mostly affected dervish lodge literature, divan poetry was also influenced by Bektashism. In this paper, we examined the poems of the poet with the pseudonym Kemterī in the manuscript number OE_Yz_0723 that we found in the İBB Atatürk Library. The work was recorded as a journal in the library. There are poems by other poets at the beginning and end of the work. At the beginning of the work, there is a section consisting of 4 leaves, which is thought to belong to another work. After this section, there is a section titled as “Divān-ı Perākende”. This section contains poems belonging to two poets with Zekāyī and Nizami pseudonyms. Apart from these, some poems do not have pseudonyms. Considering the content of the poems, Alevi-Bektashi elements are noticed. The section in which these poems are included consists of 10 leaves. At the end of the work, the poems belong to a poet named Kazım. The section in which Kemterī's poems are included in the manuscript starts from the 12th leaf. 70 leaves of the work, which has 108 leaves in total, belong to Kemterī. His poems are so many that they can form a divan. The first poem belonging to him in work was written in Nefes verse under the title “Nefes”. The Nefes’ are one of the most frequently used verse forms by Alevi Bektashi poets. Based on this and other poems that follow, we understand that he is a poet who adheres to the Alevi-Bektashi tradition. He mentioned Alevi-Bektashi poets other than himself in his poems. He mentioned about Haji Bektash Veli, Molla Jami, Nesīmī, many sect sheiks, and Alevi-Bektashi poets and gave examples of their poems. He included breaths, stanzas, and elegies in his poems. He used Aruz's prosody in his poems without any mistakes. Although he used different meters, he usually wrote with "fāilātun fāilātun fāilātun fāilun" meter of remel bahri, "mefāilun mefāīlun mefāīlun mefāilun" meter of hecez bahri and wrote poems with "mefāilun mefāīlun feûlun" meter in his Nefes. Besides the meter, he also used the language successfully. The content of his poems constitutes Hazrat Muhammed, Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Hassan, Hazrat Hussein, Hazrat Fatima and the love of Ahl al-Bayt, the Karbala incident, the pain felt from what happened, and the Twelve Imams. There are elegies to Hazrat Hassan and Hussein, dirges containing the Karbala event, the Nefes’, poems with Ali Redif, and poems of advice that he wrote for those who entered the sect. One verse of a dirge he wrote is “Kerbela narıyla dağ-ı sineni dağla bugün (Turkish in origin)” and another verse is “Şah Hüseynin matemidir karalar bağla bugün (Turkish in origin)”. These verses are a small sample of his poems and his commitment to this tradition. We examined Kemterī's poems in terms of the content, verse forms, meter, language, and other elements that make up the work by benefiting from the sources of Alevi Bektashi literature. Kemterī's poems have an important place in terms of Alevi-Bektashi literature and Turkish literature.