Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Yaylı and mizraplı tanbur by @bugrahankayaofficial check out his awesome channel here for more tanbur content: youtube.com/c/Bu%C4%9FrahanKayaMusic
The Epic Turkic series is a musical project where the sounds of modern Turkic cultures are used as a framing device for themes pertaining to the history of the Turkic peoples. In this case, I used a fusion of modern Central Asian Turkic cultures and modern Turkish music, and lyrics from the divân of Kadı Burhâneddin, an academic, politician and poet of the Eretnid Beylik, one of the many Beyliks, or petty kingdoms that dotted Anatolia following the fall of the Seljuk state and preceding the eventual rise of the Ottoman beylik who absorded all the others into a singular empire. Despite having been active in Anatolia, the linguistic parametres of his Turkic dialect are more contiguous with what would later become the Azerbaijani language, rather than modern Anatolian Turkish.
Kadı Burhâneddin, known as Kadı for having first been a judge, is known outside of his prolific poetry mainly for having taken over the Eretnid kingdom and becoming Sultan of his own beylik, and his political work usually overshadows his artistic one.
The music uses the Kazkakh dombra, the singular one beat pattern on a simple fram drum as found in Central Asia, as well the oud, saz, plectrum tanbur, and yaylı tanbur, a variant of the former tanbur developped in the 1900's and played with a bow, making akin to a Turkish cello. The melody is composed mainly in Makam Bayat, but as is common in Ottoman Classical music, momentarily switches to a chromatic note which in this case references Makam Karcığar.
Lyrics in Old Anatolian Turkic:
Oldı müsahhar bize çü Şâmla Rûm
Düşmene bolduh demür, dostlara mûm
Her kişiler yorısun yollarına,
Çün dosta mübâreküz, düşmene şûm. 
Oldur er Hak yolına baş oynaya,
Döşekde ölen yigit murdâr bolur. 
Hemîşe âşık gönli biryân bolur,
Her nefes garîb gözi giryân bolur;
Sûfîlerün dilegi mihrâb namâz,
Er kişinün ârzûsı meydân bolur.
Üstünde devlet bugün sayvan olsun,
Sa‘âdet yine bizge eyvân olsun;
Niçe ki ben sağam u kaygurmanuz,
Var cânum yiğitlere kurbân olsun. 
Câna cân virmeyenün ne cânı var,
Cân virenün adıyle sanı var;
Er kişinün metâ‘ı erlik olur,
Cevherînün la‘l ile mercânı var.
Subh-demdür al ele çengi begüm,
Giderelüm arada cengi begüm. 
English translation:
Syria and Rum have been made subject to us.
We are iron to the enemy, but wax to friends.
Let all men walk upon our roads:
For friends we are a blessing, for foes a curse.
That man is brave who stakes his head on God’s path;
The youth who dies on a bed is vile.
The lover’s heart is always burning,
The exile’s eyes are weeping at every breath;
The wish of the Sufi is the mihrab for prayer,
But the wish of the brave man is the battlefield.
May fortune today be a canopy above you,
May happiness again be our pavilion.
As long as I live, you need not worry:
My very soul shall be a sacrifice for the warriors.
What life has the man who gives not his life?
He who gives his life earns a name and renown.
The goods of the brave man are bravery itself;
And of the jewel, its rubies and corals.
It is dawn—take up the harp, my lord,
For today let us go forth into battle, my lord.
Yaylı and mizraplı tanbur by @bugrahankayaofficial check out his awesome channel here for more tanbur content: youtube.com/c/Bu%C4%9FrahanKayaMusic
The Epic Turkic series is a musical project where the sounds of modern Turkic cultures are used as a framing device for themes pertaining to the history of the Turkic peoples. In this case, I used a fusion of modern Central Asian Turkic cultures and modern Turkish music, and lyrics from the divân of Kadı Burhâneddin, an academic, politician and poet of the Eretnid Beylik, one of the many Beyliks, or petty kingdoms that dotted Anatolia following the fall of the Seljuk state and preceding the eventual rise of the Ottoman beylik who absorded all the others into a singular empire. Despite having been active in Anatolia, the linguistic parametres of his Turkic dialect are more contiguous with what would later become the Azerbaijani language, rather than modern Anatolian Turkish.
Kadı Burhâneddin, known as Kadı for having first been a judge, is known outside of his prolific poetry mainly for having taken over the Eretnid kingdom and becoming Sultan of his own beylik, and his political work usually overshadows his artistic one.
The music uses the Kazkakh dombra, the singular one beat pattern on a simple fram drum as found in Central Asia, as well the oud, saz, plectrum tanbur, and yaylı tanbur, a variant of the former tanbur developped in the 1900's and played with a bow, making akin to a Turkish cello. The melody is composed mainly in Makam Bayat, but as is common in Ottoman Classical music, momentarily switches to a chromatic note which in this case references Makam Karcığar.
Lyrics in Old Anatolian Turkic:
Oldı müsahhar bize çü Şâmla Rûm
Düşmene bolduh demür, dostlara mûm
Her kişiler yorısun yollarına,
Çün dosta mübâreküz, düşmene şûm. 
Oldur er Hak yolına baş oynaya,
Döşekde ölen yigit murdâr bolur. 
Hemîşe âşık gönli biryân bolur,
Her nefes garîb gözi giryân bolur;
Sûfîlerün dilegi mihrâb namâz,
Er kişinün ârzûsı meydân bolur.
Üstünde devlet bugün sayvan olsun,
Sa‘âdet yine bizge eyvân olsun;
Niçe ki ben sağam u kaygurmanuz,
Var cânum yiğitlere kurbân olsun. 
Câna cân virmeyenün ne cânı var,
Cân virenün adıyle sanı var;
Er kişinün metâ‘ı erlik olur,
Cevherînün la‘l ile mercânı var.
Subh-demdür al ele çengi begüm,
Giderelüm arada cengi begüm. 
English translation:
Syria and Rum have been made subject to us.
We are iron to the enemy, but wax to friends.
Let all men walk upon our roads:
For friends we are a blessing, for foes a curse.
That man is brave who stakes his head on God’s path;
The youth who dies on a bed is vile.
The lover’s heart is always burning,
The exile’s eyes are weeping at every breath;
The wish of the Sufi is the mihrab for prayer,
But the wish of the brave man is the battlefield.
May fortune today be a canopy above you,
May happiness again be our pavilion.
As long as I live, you need not worry:
My very soul shall be a sacrifice for the warriors.
What life has the man who gives not his life?
He who gives his life earns a name and renown.
The goods of the brave man are bravery itself;
And of the jewel, its rubies and corals.
It is dawn—take up the harp, my lord,
For today let us go forth into battle, my lord.
