Mustafa Âsım’ın Maktel-i Hüseyin’i: Nâle-i Uşşâk

Abstract

Saint Husayn and his brother Saint Hasan, the grandsons of the Prophet Muhammed, have different and special positions in Muslim societies. Saint Husayn was martyred by the soldiers of Yazid, who has declared himself as khalifa in Karbala. Various works were produced to describe this harrowingincident. One of them is Nâle-i Ussâk, which was written by Mustafa Âsim born in 1856, in Istanbul and died in 1904, in Trabzon. The poet has imitated the work of Kazim Pasha from Konice namedRiyâz-i Asfiyâ. The work is a masnavi consisting of 141 couplets. The poet explained that he has written this work because he wished to describe the harrowing incident of the great person, Saint Husayn, in Karbala, after starting his work with basmala. The poet told about deaths of the Prophet Muhammad, Saint Fatima, Saint Abu Bakr, Saint Omar, Saint Othman, Saint Ali and Saint Hasan in his work. After that, he started to the main topic he wished to tell. According to the work, Mu‘âwiyahas declared his son Yazid as khalifa. Yazid has requested Saint Husayn to obey him. People of Kūfe have stated that they will support Saint Husayn and called him there, then he has departed towards there. When he has arrived Karbala, Ibn Ziyâd, one of Yazid’s commanders, and his soldiers encircledthem. Firstly, they have left them without water, then attacked them. Although Saint Husayn and his neighbours were few in number, they fought heroically. But the heretic named Shimr bin Zi’l-jawshanhas martyrized Saint Husayn. Saint Husayn’s family and friends were first exiled to Damascus and then to Hijaz. This incident caused grief in the entire Muslim world. Even angels in the sky cried and groaned. Mustafa Âsim described the event in his work in accordance with historical facts. Inthis study, it is tried to evaluate the work of Mustafa Âsim named Nâle-i Ussâk, and transcribed text of the work is provided at the end. In addition, it has been tried to indicate similar or different aspects of Koniceli Kazim Pasha’s work named Riyâz-i Asfiyâ.