“Yunus Emre: Turkish Medieval Humanist Mystic”

HOBOKEN, N.J. — Wednesday, February 23, 2005, Dr. Talat S. Halman, Turkey’s first Minister of Culture and the Turkish-American actress Defne Halman will present a program with live music provided by Jeff Peretz and his Abu Gara Ensemble about the great medieval writer Yunus Emre (ca. 1238–1320).

This event is co-sponsored by the Turkish Studies Program at Stevens and the Light Millennium, Inc. It is open to the public without charge. The event will begin with a reception from 7:00–7:30 p.m. in the Kidde Building on the Stevens campus, in Kidde Lecture Hall, Room 228. For more information, e-mail contact@lightmillennium.org, or TALISMANED@aol.com, or figenbingul@lightmillennium.org. For location information, call (201) 216-5399.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed 1991 as the “International Yunus Emre Year.” This resolution was adopted on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the birth of the great Anatolian poet of the 13th century.

Yunus Emre was one of the first and most influential Turkish poets and Sufi philosophers. He is considered to be the founder of Anatolian Turkish literature and, in that sense, is compared to Dante in the West. His Sufi approach has influenced many Islamic sects; his hymns have been recited, chanted and handed down by oral tradition from one generation to the next since late 13th century.

Many poets who lived after his death borrowed his name and contributed to the major pool of hymns bearing his name. There exist numerous biographies and tombs attributed to him all over Anatolia.

Information on his life is derived from events and personalities cited in his verse. A total of 357 poems have been attributed to him as a result of literary analyses. Yunus came from a poor peasant family and was initiated into a mystic sect of Islam. He is said to have met Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the poet and founder of Mevlevi sect. According to "Velayetname" (the Book of the Saints of the Bektasi order), Yunus was a student of Tapduk Emre, a dervish who belonged to a school of Turkish intellectuals coming from Asia ahead of the Mongol flood towards Anatolia. Yunus Emre lived in a most unstable, chaotic period of Anatolian history, a time when the Mongolian invaders abolished the Anatolian Seljuk State.

Under conditions of persistent injustice, robbery and murder, Yunus Emre advised people to attend to the love of God, love of people, and love of peace.

Unlike Mevlana, who wrote in Persian, the literary language of the era, Yunus expressed himself in his native tongue, Turkish. His language is direct and easy-to-understand, while his style is rich in Sufi metaphors. His verses are full of penetrating, humane and enthusiastic feelings and ideas. According to his approach, God and man are the same; everyone has a piece of God within himself, and only the body dies and the soul reaches to God, but only if one has loved mankind and forgiven faults, endured pains and tried to learn the secrets, the reasons, and the forms of being.

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