'Ashik (wandering minstrel-poets)

'Ashik means lover, frequently in the mystical sense. Among the Anatolian and Adharbayjani Turks it named a class of wandering poet-minstrels, who sang and recited at public gatherings. ¹

Their repertoire included religious and erotic songs, elegies and heroic narratives. At first they followed the syllabic prosody of the popular poets, but later were subject to Persian influence, both directly and through Persian-influenced Turkish Sufi poets. Kopruluzade (M. F. Koprulu) argued that they form a social element distinct from the popular poets, the court poets and the madrasa-educated religious poets, and succeed the earlier Turkish bards called ozan. They were especially numerous in the seventeenth century, when they are found among the dervish orders, the Janissaries and other branches of the armed forces. The most famous are Gewheri and 'Ashik 'Omer. ²