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THE PHILOSOPHICAL POEMS (HİKMET) OF UBEYDULLAH KHAN |
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Assoc.s. Prof. Dr. Ali
Fuat BİLHAN |
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Ubeydullah
Khan, one of the sultans of Şeybani Dynasty, is an important historical
figure in terms of his interest in culture and literature and his
success in government affairs. Ubeydullah Khan wrote poems in Arabic and
Persian, studied fıqh, interpretation of the Koran, hadith, etc. He was
also involued in arts like calligraphy, miniature painting and
traditional Turkish music. Ubeydullah
Khan, who was deeply influenced by Ahmed Yesevi, besides writing poems
in Persian, Arabic and Jagatai, also wrote philosophical poems in the
Yesevi tradition. As it was among the peoples of Şeybani and Timur,
Persian had a more important place than Turkish as a language of
literature. Ubeydullah Khan's philosophical poems are one of the
significant examples of Jagatai Turkish and they are written as ghazels
and stanzas in classical Ottoman poetry style(aruz). His understanding
of sufism and his preferance of plain Turkish and the philosophical
poems of Yesevi are for keeping the notion of Turkish Islamic faith
alive. He wrote simple poems to make the the sufistic teachings of Ahmed
Yesevi widespread among common people. He tried to revive the culture of
rural life as a way of preserving the unity of people and supported his
ideas with his works. The
manuscript that contains Ubeydullah Khan's philosophical poems is in the
Library of Raza, Rampur, India. No other copy of it is known to be
present. This work is known as Divan-ı Ubeydi and consists of 23 pages
each of which has 10 lines. There are 16 philosophical poems in this
work. This manuscript both conveys the teachings of Ahmed Yesevi into
the 16th century and also reveals how the peoples of Şeybani valued the
Turkish unity. |
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