Yusuf Meddah
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Yusuf Meddah ( az, Yusif Məddah, ) was an early 14th-century Anatolian turkish poet. Although little is known about his life, it is estimated that he lived at the beginning of the 14th century. Meddah was well-educated and fluent in Azerbaijani, Arabic, and Persian. Meddah's most famous work is , which consists of approximately 1,700
couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
s written in form, a type of poetry using quantifying prosody, and is based on an Arabic folk tale. Other notable works by Meddah include , , , and possibly and if they are indeed his works.


Life

Not much is known about the life of Yusuf Meddah. He used the
pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...
"Yusuf Meddah" most commonly in his work, although he also went by other names such as "Yusufi" and "Yusuf-i Meddah". The earliest reference to the poet comes from the Turkish poet Mustafa Sheykhoghlu's work, , written in 1401. In this work, he recites a
couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
from and mentions "Yusuf-i Meddah". His birth date and place are unknown, but he is believed to have lived in the early 14th century. The scholar Shahin Mustafayev suggests that Meddah was a native of Eastern Anatolia. His works suggest that he was well-educated, fluent in
Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...
, Arabic, and Persian, and knowledgeable in religious studies. He spent his early years in Azerbaijan before relocating to Konya and joining the Mevlevi Order, a
Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
order that originated in the city. As can be inferred from the title '' Meddah'', a name given to a traditional
Turkic Turkic may refer to: * anything related to the country of Turkey * Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages ** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation) ** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language * ...
storyteller, he travelled from city to city, reciting poetry to the public. He lived in various regions, including Erzincan, Ankara, Sivas, and Kastamonu, and was well known in these places. It is believed that he lived a long life, but his death date and place are unknown.


Poetry

Meddah had a strong command of the Azerbaijani language. He was familiar with the (collection of short poems) literature of his time and enriched his poems with verses, '' hadiths'', proverbs, and
idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
s. Meddah was knowledgeable in prosody and incorporated folk sayings and expressions in his works, which also included literary arts. The most famous work by the poet is (), which consists of approximately 1,700 couplets written in form. The work was started in 1342–1343 in Sivas and is based on an Arabic folk tale, written in the epic-lyrical genre. It is the first rendition of the folktale in the literature of Turkic languages. The work recounts the tragic love story of Varqa and Gülşāh, the son and daughter of two brothers who were leaders of the
Bani Shaiba The Bani Shaiba Quraysh ( ar, بني شيبه, ) are an Arab tribe that hold the keys to the Kaaba. Overview The members of the tribe greet visitors into the Kaaba during the cleaning ceremony and clean the interior together with the visitors. ...
tribe. Despite their love for each other, various incidents prevent them from marrying. In the end, Gülşāh marries a local king. After being falsely informed that Gülşāh had died, Varqa takes his own life. Upon visiting Varqa's grave, Gülşāh also ends her own life. The poem is divided into six parts, each called a (), and contains twelve (a form of amatory poem) that the heroes sing to each other. Meddah incorporated both written and spoken forms of folk literature into his writing at the end of each . The language of the work is very simple and contains many repetitions. The Turkish scholar Orhan Aytuğ Tolu believes that Meddah wrote the poem "as if he were telling a story in a public assembly". The writer Grace Martin Smith also shares a similar view, stating that the work is "ideally suited to be part of the repertory of an itinerant Anatolian story teller". Smith considers the work to be the "first Anatolian Turki romantic narrative poem", which, like all other Turkic works of that time, has a strong Persian influence. Meddah has several other notable works. One of them is , an Azerbaijani (a poem written in rhyming couplets) that uses the same metre as . It spans nine a half folios long and recounts tales of the Caliph Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Another work is , a brief comprising only thirteen lines. It imparts a message of inspiration towards righteous conduct and is filled with spiritual and Sufi notions. The scholar İlyas Kayaokay believes that is not a separate work, but rather a part of . In 2018, a work thought to belong to Darir from Erzurum, another Anatolian Turkic poet, was revealed to belong to Meddah after a new copy of the work was discovered in the Algerian National Library. The work, titled , is a 2,000-couplets-long that tells the life of Joseph and the story of Yusuf (Joesph) and Zulaikha. Other works include , an Azerbaijani translated from an Arabic work with many additions by Meddah, consisting of 240 couplets. Another work is , an Azerbaijani masnavi that recounts the Battle of Karbala, a military engagement in 680 CE between the army of the second Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and a small army led by
Husayn ibn Ali Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, أبو عبد الله الحسين بن علي بن أبي طالب; 10 January 626 – 10 October 680) was a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a son of Ali ibn Abi ...
, the grandson of Muhammad. The work consists of almost 3,000 couplets and is translated from a work of the same name by Ebû Mihnef, a 14th-century Umayyad historian. It was written in August 1362 and, like , uses the form. Meddah also incorporated many folk sayings and elements of oral literature into the work, as well as several references to verses in the Quran. However, according to the Italian Turkologist Alessio Bombaci and the French Turkologist
Irène Mélikoff Irène Mélikoff ( az, İren Məlikova; russian: Ирен Меликофф; 7 November 1917 – 8 January 2009) was a Russian-born French Turkologist with Azerbaijani ancestry. Life Mélikoff's ancestors had been major industrialists in ...
, this work is actually attributed to Şadi Meddah, a writer from Kastamonu. , a Persian written in 1300 in Erzincan, is another work that is occasionally ascribed to Yusuf Meddah.


Legacy

Meddah's poetry played a role in shaping the Azerbaijani literary language, and he is regarded as key figure in the early development of
Azerbaijani literature Azerbaijani literature ( az, Azərbaycan ədəbiyyatı) is written in Azerbaijani, a Turkic language, which is the official state language of the Republic of Azerbaijan, where the North Azerbaijani variety is spoken. It is also natively spoken ...
. He lived and wrote during a time when Eastern Anatolia was a hub of Azerbaijani literature, and his contributions were significant in establishing the region as such.


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* * * * * * * * {{Authority control Azerbaijani poets Persian-language poets 14th-century poets from the Ottoman Empire