Yunus Emre
 We know little about the life of Yunus Emre
because the sources available to us are precious, scant and uncertain.
Almost every significant thing about his life must be drawn from his poems.
The empire of the great Seljuk Turks, established in Khorassan by the
mid-eleventh century, had already expanded its borders to the lands of
Anatolia. The Byzantine empire which ruled Anatolia launched the Crusades to
preserve its borders against the threat of these Seljuk Turks. The armies of
the Crusades were defeated in their battles against them, and the Seljuk
Turks established precedence over the Byzantines by conquering Anatolia. Yet
shortly afterwards, the empire of the great Seljuk Turks collapsed as the
Anatolian state of the Seljuk Turks was formed, while the Crusades still
continued. And so not only did Anatolia itself fall into ruin from the
ravages of war, but the Anatolian state of the Seljuk Turks was also
seriously weakened in spite of their major victory over the armies of the
Crusades.
The people of Anatolia, already weakened
and devastated by the Crusades from the west, now fell victim to the
plundering attacks of the Mongols from the east. In 1231 when the Mongols
marched into the city of Sivas in central Anatolia, they embarked on the
mass slaughter of the civilian population there. By the time the army of the
Seljuk Turks arrived the Mongols had already withdrawn, disappearing into
the rest of Anatolia. The direct consequence of these recurring Mongol raids
on Anatolia was the splintering of its people, already weak and feeble, into
many separate groups. Since the authority of the Anatolian Seljuk state was
now so weak it had disintegrated politically, and since the army was
incapable of protecting its citizens, individual communities gathered around
a local ruler or beylik, a sultan.
This was the beginning of a process which
strengthened a number of local rulers and sultans. On the one hand, local
rulers, severely competitive, were fighting each other; at the same time
they were also in revolt against the authority of the Seljuk state, while
still struggling with the Mongol invasions. The picture we now see of
Anatolia is sketched in by invasion, riot, the transition from nomadic to
settled life for large groups of people, social disquiet and the instability
of the Seljuk regime. We can say Anatolia was seething with unrest because
of the Crusades, Mongol invasions, the revolt of local rulers and political
quarrels for sovereignty among sultans.
This period of utmost unrest and turmoil
shaped by all these difficulties which the people of Anatolia suffered, also
shaped the remarkable character, the poetry and inner world of Yunus Emre.
Through this terrible time, he spent his entire life trying to establish
peace and unity in Anatolia, with both his ideas and his efforts. In pursuit
of this, he traveled extensively among all the local rulers, explaining the
significance of unity and peace to them: his great service was to give voice
to and stimulate an awareness of these ideals in Anatolia.
There is consensus among historians and
scholars that the Sakarya Valley is the place where Yunus Emre came into
this world. Accordingly, Sariköy – now called the village of Yunus Emre in
the town of Mihalliççik, Eskisehir – has been acknowledged as the village
where Yunus Emre was born.
During his youth when Yunus Emre lived with
his mother in this village, he found himself in a kind of ghariblik, a
strangeness, a sense of otherness which occasionally plunged him into
loneliness. Most of the time, Yunus Emre wandered by himself through
vineyards and orchards where he found himself in deep contemplation. One day
as he was wandering alone again, he encountered “the sorrowful waterwheel.”
While raising and lowering the waters of a stream to water vineyards and
orchards, the waterwheel resonated as if it were weeping and moaning. He was
overwhelmed by the effect of the waterwheel because its groaning actually
voiced his own state of otherness, his solitude in this world.
I am the sorrowing waterwheel,
My waters flow and flow,
This is what God has commanded, and
This is why I weep and moan.
I lift the waters up from deep below,
I spin around and push them up;
See the sorrows I have in the world, and
This is why I weep and moan.
In this way, Yunus Emre begun to pile up
sorrow within himself for reasons which are unknown. The more his sorrow
increased, the lonelier he became in a crowd. This loneliness, even among
other people, was his sole friend; he was now the close friend of those who
sorrow. In his village, if someone had sorrow and was in misery, Yunus would
visit eagerly to share the sorrow, no matter who the person was. From that
time on, everyone's sorrow, everyone's difficulty turned out to be Yunus
Emre's own sorrow. He prayed to the Creator to help those who found this
strange affliction in themselves: with his prayers to God Yunus sought a
remedy for their sorrow.
During a famine, he traveled to the dergah,
the dervish lodge, of Hajji Bektash Veli, the great sultan of ma‘na, of
meaning, to ask for grain and seeds to feed his starving, hungry villagers.
On the way to Hajji Bektash Veli, Yunus decided he could not arrive there
with empty hands, and he picked some wild pears on the Anatolian steppes as
a gift for Hajji Bektash. May God not oblige anyone to arrive with empty
hands.
Hajji Bektash asked Yunus if he would
accept a nefes, the secret breath of a blessing, instead of a cartful of
grain sacks, but Yunus' mind was on his villagers who were starving. Then
Hajji Bektash increased his offer, “We will give you ten nefes for each wild
pear you brought us.” Since Yunus had never heard of a nefes before, nor
could he even imagine its extraordinary bliss, he chose the grain and seeds,
and Hajji Bektash gave him the food instead.
Later, on his way back to the village,
Yunus thought he had probably made a mistake as he began to realize the
significance of the nefes Hajji Bektash had offered him. He rushed back to
him and said, “Here is your grain, take it back and give me your nefes.” But
Hajji Bektash told him his share of the nefes had been turned over to Taptuk
Emre who would soon become his guide on the path. And so Yunus went to
Taptuk Emre.
It took only a little time for Yunus to
find Taptuk Emre, delivering himself with total love to his guide. Taptuk
gave Yunus the duty of carrying wood from the forest to the dergah, the
dervish lodge, and Yunus was a very conscientious pupil in his service
there. This means he thought bent or curving pieces of wood were not worthy
of the dergah, for which only straight pieces were acceptable. Whenever he
returned from the forest Yunus was seen carrying unbent branches of wood to
the dergah. However, this scrupulous concern for his duty caused a series of
painful injuries to his back, of which Yunus said nothing.
Gharib Yunus, strange, secret Yunus, even
though his back was covered with the wounds of these injuries, he still
delivered the wood. Because the wounds hurt if he tried to unload one piece
at a time, carefully, he would just fling it all to the ground at once. When
they saw him do this, some of the dervishes who were envious of Yunus ran to
Taptuk Emre and complained, “Yunus is already bored with service to you; now
he is throwing the wood around and scattering what he brings to the dergah
everywhere.”
Taptuk Emre replied, “Give him a beating!
He has to give up this duty and be punished.” They went back to Yunus, beat
him within an inch of his life then shoved him outside the gate. Now his
body was almost out of the dergah, except for his head which was still
inside.
Yunus whispered, “Al-hamdu lillah, all
praise to Allah, my head is still inside.”
As soon as Taptuk heard what Yunus said, he
rushed to embrace him with tears in his eyes, then he turned to the
dervishes who had beaten Yunus and said angrily, “You tried to kill him, but
I told you to beat him. Now I have heard what I wanted to hear.” Taptuk Emre
himself cleansed Yunus' wounds and healed them; he never had him fetch wood
for the dergah again.
One day, when Taptuk presided over a
gathering with his dervishes he turned to Yunus and said, “Recite your
poems, my Yunus, recite your poems!” Yunus began to recite the words of the
poems we know today. The envious dervishes, furious with this recognition,
could not tolerate his presence in the dergah any longer, and they began to
accuse him, to bring charges against him with never-ending intrigues.
Offended by the plots against him, Yunus asked Taptuk for permission to
leave, “I understand it is not easy to be a dervish; so let me go into the
world with my solitude, my otherness, I will become an intimate friend of
those who sorrow.”
Yunus traveled on foot, miles and miles
through the steppes of Anatolia. There was a time during his travels when he
realized the maturity of the state he had reached on the path. One day while
he wandered the steppes of Anatolia , he encountered two traveling dervishes
who invited him to accompany them. At the dusk of the first day, one of the
dervishes prayed to God asking for food to eat: no sooner had he finished
his prayer than a well-prepared dinner appeared. Yunus was amazed. On the
second day at dinner time, the other dervish prayed and a meal just as good
as the first one appeared. Yunus began to worry he might in his turn, be
asked to produce a meal, and indeed, on the following day the two dervishes
asked Yunus for his prayer to beg God for food. Yunus prayed silently, “O my
God, I do not know such prayers, but I ask in the same name that my friends
used in their prayer to You, please, may You not embarrass me.”
As soon as he finished his prayer, twice
the amount of food they had eaten on the previous days appeared. The two
dervishes were very surprised and asked Yunus, “In whose name did you pray
to God?”
Yunus replied, “First, tell me in whose
name you prayed.” They answered they had prayed in the name of a dervish
called Yunus from Taptuk Emre's dergah.
After that, Yunus returned to Taptuk who
gave him this explanation, “We would have delivered you to Haqq, to God, as
a sealed chest, but you hurried away and opened your mouth. From this day on
you will be the intimate friend of the gharibs, the strangers, the hidden
beings, and those who sorrow. This is your path, go, do your duty!” And so
Yunus traveled every square inch of the steppes of Anatolia on foot by day
and by night. On his travels sometimes he would be a remedy for those who
sorrowed, sometimes he would reconcile enemies, sometimes he would defend
the rights of those who were treated unjustly, sometimes he would put local
rulers and landowners to shame by asking them to act with justice.
As we observed before, the local rulers and
sultans of Anatolia were fighting each other, there were mass killings, the
Mongols were invading. In an age when battles, killing and destruction were
rampant in Anatolia, Yunus, the volunteer for peace, traveled among the
local rulers sowing the seeds of love, compassion and unity. In the same
way, may God permit us to follow the same principles that Yunus did, may we
have the determination and the intention to serve all without discrimination
in this world today where unpleasant things are also happening. Amin .
During his lifetime Yunus did not claim to
be a dervish nor did he describe himself as a sheikh or sultan. He was
content with Haqq, the truth or reality which is God, losing any sense of
self or varlik, individual existence, in the presence of Haqq. In this way
he achieved the happiness of being yokluk, nothing, while at the same time
becoming a source of hope for the gharibs, the hidden beings living in their
otherness.
Yunus traveled to Syria and Azerbaijan as
well as through Anatolia. Sariköy, the place of his birth, is also the place
where he died. Though several towns in Anatolia claim to possess Yunus'
mazar, his tomb, they are, in fact, his maqams, his spiritual stations in
the world, places where he might have stopped to rest during his travels,
where he might have visited people to discourse to them. The reverence for
these places reveals how much the people of Anatolia valued Yunus, how they
accepted and loved him. In fact, they appreciated and understood him well,
aware that Yunus was truly close to them, and so they embraced him. He was,
indeed, that friend who was conscious of their sorrows, their difficulties
in life; he never separated himself from their reality. Furthermore, he was
the only poet of his time who turned his face towards them, composing his
poems in their spoken tongue. He implicitly explained the most complex, the
most profound and perplexing truths to the people in their own language,
making it easy for them to understand what he conveyed in his poems.
Knowledge of science is to
know science,
Knowledge of science is self-knowledge;
If you fail to attain self knowledge,
What good is there in your studies?
Reference: Yunus Emre: His Life and
Selected Poems written and edited by Faruk Dilaver
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