MY COMMENTS :
Written by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Bayrakdar, the work covers the life of Yunus Emre, the period in which he lived, and his world of ideas.
As can be seen in the quotations section, the parts indicated in italics are the parts directly quoted from Yunus Emre's works. The other parts should be indicated as the parts where the author explains and interprets Yunus Emre's words and thoughts.
Yunus Emre, who had a personality and a world of ideas far ahead of his time, clearly shows that he was one of the rare thinkers who managed to explain the creation of humanity in a version very close to our day.
It is also observed that during the time the author lived, the Ottoman Principality was in the establishment stages and there were many principalities in Anatolia. However, it can also be observed that he was far ahead of his geography in terms of science and the world of ideas.
In addition, Yunus Emre, who clearly reveals the distinction between the current meaning of love and its original meaning, actually refers to the essence that creates a person when he says love (Işk in the original Oghuz Turkish). When viewed from this perspective, it becomes even clearer at the beginning of the work that love is everything that belongs to a person.
The author, who also expresses the types of love in detail, manages to clearly express the definitions between Yunus Emre's view of love, which consists of two types: existential love and comedic love.
It is also clear that Yunus Emre, who clearly stated that everything has its opposite, still has very meaningful messages in his views, 750 years after they were written. In this respect, he continues to show everyone that he is a folk poet who managed to win people's hearts with his immortal and permanent works.
Yunus Emre, who also made important observations about death, especially stated that man finds himself in the arms of death from the moment he is born, and he talks about the importance of man's spiritual death as soon as possible. The author states that this means that man should be at peace with death, especially by killing his ego and not being too attached to life.
The work, which provides a very clear understanding of Sufi philosophy and world views, shows that it is definitely one of the books that should be examined by readers who want to do research and gather information about Yunus Emre in the real sense. It should also be considered as a bedside book that can appeal to everyone thanks to the important lessons that readers of all ages can apply to their lives.
MY QUOTATIONS(*) :
Just as a person does not have to be a philosopher by profession in order to have philosophy, that is, systematic thought, not everyone who is a philosopher by profession has philosophy.
According to the information given about him in Yunus Emre's works, it is certain that he lived between the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century (1240-1321). The fact that Velayet-Names show him as being from Sivrihisar's Sarıköy and say that he died there does not solve the problem. Because there was not a single Sivrihisar and Sarıköy in Anatolia since ancient times.
It is a generally accepted view that Yunus Emre was a poor Turkmen peasant and was a farmer in his youth.
We can say that Yunus Emre's life covers a period from a year or two before the Battle of Kösedağ, which led to the Mongol invasion of Anatolia and took place in 1243, to the last years of Osman Bey's reign.
Realizing that they could not cope with the Mongols, the Anatolian Seljuk administration made an agreement with them on the condition that they would be free to do their internal affairs but be dependent on them in their external affairs in return for the heavy taxes they would pay annually. Thus, Gıyasettin II and the Anatolian Seljuk State under his leadership came under the yoke of the Mongols. After the death of Gıyasettin II, there were great rebellions in Anatolia; the beys and princes fell out with each other in the fight for the throne. Taking advantage of this, the Mongol commander Baycu marched to Anatolia again with a large army in 1256. Baycu, who came as far as Konya, enthroned Rükneddin Kılıçarslan IV and did not leave Anatolia for a while. The people, who were suffering from the Mongol invasion, lost hope in the central administration and began to gather around their own beys. States within the state were formed. Thus, the unity of the Anatolian Turks was broken.
According to the Velayet-Names, it is learned that Yunus began his first spiritual education by receiving inspiration from Hacı Bektaş Veli at a middle age, or even a young age. Although most writers accept this, this narration, which has an anecdotal value, is not historically correct in our opinion. Because, although Yunus Emre mentions the names of people with whom he was in contact and who guided him in his works, he never mentions the name Hacı Bektaş Veli. Secondly, if we look at the dates that some sources give as the year of Hacı Bektaş Veli's death, such as 1335 or even 1340, it becomes clear that Yunus was an older person than him.
In the poems of Yunus, who knew how to use the language with an unparalleled power and skill, Oghuz Turkish took its most beautiful and pure form.
“ The higher the mountain, the more the road passes over it, Yunus Emre shows the way to the pathless and says good things ”.
Yunus Emre was the first Turkish poet and mystic to be translated into the Latin world.
According to Yunus, love is everything: God is love; creation is love; religion and faith are love; blasphemy and rebellion are love; life and death are love; heaven and hell are love; nothingness and existence are love. In short, the essence of everything is love and everything is the work of love.
According to Yunus, love, being everything, is the principle and essence on the ontological plane; in other words, love is the quality of existence. (its essence)
Yunus Emre preferred the word "işk" instead of the word "aşk". Because "işk" has a wider meaning than the word "aşk" and there is a difference in quality between them. While "aşk" expresses a more emotional and profane love and affection, "işk" expresses a sublime and spiritual love. Although Yunus Emre was not the first to make the distinction between "aşk" and "işk"; this distinction was made much earlier by some Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Sina. However, as we have tried to explain above, Yunus was the first to see love in the sense of "işk" as the essence and principle of everything.
With love, a person finds the world meaningless and surpasses himself. The more a person distances himself from the world in this sense, the more he gains value and becomes more mature.
According to Yunus Emre, we call the worldly love that makes people laugh and have fun, comedic love. This is the joy and happiness that comes from the satisfaction of a person's passions and desires. It is the pleasure that wealth, position, fame and reputation give to a person.
Tragic love is the true love that Jonah calls to his path. It is the exact opposite of comedic love, and it is the negation of all the feelings and thoughts that bind the world and man to worldly things.
Since the world of reality consists of both, knowledge of the truth can only be achieved by knowing the positives and negatives together. This is why Yunus believes that in order to move towards true love, a person must first know what the negatives are. If a person clings to only the positive qualities and ignores the negatives, they may not be completely happy.
Existential love is the way a person gives meaning to his/her own self, personality and society through the ideal of divine love.
According to Yunus, self-alienation is actually necessary for a person to find himself again.
A person's personality is what he wants to see in another, what he wants to think about him, and what he wants to feel for him. From here, there is a view of personality that finds its definition in the meaning of our proverb " A person is a mirror of another " by Yunus Emre.
According to Yunus, faith is essentially love and loving. Blasphemy is lovelessness. Whatever one loves, that is one’s faith. Whatever one dislikes, that is one’s sultan (authority). In this sense, faith and blasphemy mean attachment: “ Whatever you love is your faith, whatever you dislike is your sultan. ”
Faith teaches man what he is lacking and leads him to seek it. However, unbelief arises from man seeing himself as perfect and causes him to close his eyes to the truth.
According to Yunus, if the essence and purpose of worship is to lead a person to the love of God, then the person who has attained such love is always in worship.
Everyone is obliged to worship as religion commands. However, according to Yunus, worship is real worship when it is done in accordance with its spirit and purpose.
While Yunus calls the knowledge gained by studying in a school and from a teacher as “knowledge”, he calls the knowledge gained by reading from the book of love as “ wisdom ” or “ knowledge ”.
Those who deal with the appearance of things, those who deal with the theoretical rules and methods of religion called Sharia, are only those who fit knowledge into narrow frameworks.
Yunus does not call knowledge that does not teach the truth of man knowledge. Knowledge is man knowing himself. If man does not know his own truth, he cannot know anything properly. “ The need to study knowledge is to know yourself, if you do not know yourself, you are worse than an animal. Knowledge is to know knowledge, knowledge is to know yourself, if you do not know yourself, what good is reading? ”
According to Yunus, fate means that man chooses with his own will among the actions and behaviors created by God. Therefore, responsibility arises for man.
Being born means dying; as soon as a person steps into the world with birth, he falls into the clutches of death.
According to Yunus, there is a physical death, which is the separation of the soul from the body. Death is intertwined with life, and life means death; it is necessary to experience death while still in the world. It means knowing how to approach it instead of running away from it, and how to love it instead of fearing it.
According to Yunus Emre, in this world where the ultimate end is death, man must kill his ego and worldly passions. This is the first step towards reaching immortality.
With spiritual death, a person reunites with God while still in this world and finds his own self. According to Yunus, death is also a feeling and a phenomenon that forms the true self of a person. (When spiritual death is mentioned here, it is especially the killing of the soul that is in question.)
Yunus Emre accepts that the second main way of social and political peace and order is morality. Morality is an indispensable principle for both social and individual love.
" If the rights of your neighbor are on your neck, you may as well avoid hell tomorrow ."
" Oh, you heedless one, don't stretch your eyes to the flattery of your thoughts, don't look at your own life, don't look at anyone's faults "
“ Our name is poor, our enemy is spite, we do not hold a grudge against anyone, everyone is one to us .”
“ If you have broken hearts once, it is not the prayer you pray, even two lost nations will not wash your hands and face .”
" This is my crime to twenty-two nations, I said it rightly, fear is treason, why would I be angry? " (Yunus Emre states that those who are really committing treason are those who incite religious and sectarian divisions, and expresses that he will not be offended or angry with those who accuse him.)
“ The manis of the four books are clear in an elif, a didürmegıl bana ben bu yolar ” (Here it is stated that the ultimate purpose of the four books is to teach man about God. According to Yunus, when a person learns the first letter of the Arabic alphabet “Elif”, which represents the name of Allah in Sufi literature, he learns that the four books will teach.) “ I read the manis of the four books and I understood it, When I came to I saw that it was a long syllable ”
" I did not come for the sake of healing, my job is to love, the home of the friend is hearts, I came to make hearts "
“ I neither rejoice in existence nor lament in non-existence, I console myself with light, I need you, you ”
MY EVALUATIONS:
Subject : The work covers the life of the famous thinker, the period in which he lived, and his world of ideas.
Style: Thanks to the clear and plain narration of the author in terms of style, the work has managed to convey all the issues that were intended to be told about Yunus Emre to the reader in an analytical order and has also provided the reader with the opportunities to think like Yunus Emre. Therefore, it is seen that it has been written in a style that makes it easier to understand both the life and the world of ideas of the famous poet, as if the author is taking the reader back 750 years and chatting with him.
Fluency : Considering the issues expressed in the style section, it is not possible to evaluate the work as an engaging work in terms of its subject. However, it should be noted that it definitely has a very fluent narrative for its type with its simple and clear narrative.
General : In the evaluation made out of 10 according to the criteria stated above:
Subject: 8.5
Style: 8.5
Fluency: 8.5
The overall average of the work, which received the scores, is 8.5 points . As can be seen, the work should be considered as one of the important bedside books that people of all ages should definitely read.
(*) : All parts in the title Quotations:
YUNUS EMRE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE
Author : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Bayrakdar
Publisher : Türkiye İş Bankası Culture Publications
Edition : 1st Edition - 1991
The photo used on the cover was used as a quote from the book.
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