Yunus Emre

Timeline

1. c. 1240–1265Central Anatolia · Central AnatoliaAlmost nothing of Yunus's early life survives except later legend. What is certain is that he grew up in the Anatolian countryside as the Sultanate of Rum declined, Mongol pressure mounted, and beyliks rose, and that he later chose to write in the colloquial Turkish of the day rather than court Persian.
2. c. 1265–1285Near Nallıhan (legendary site of Tapduk's tekke) · NallıhanOral tradition holds that Yunus long served Tapduk Emre, chopping wood and doing chores at the tekke before being granted permission to recite poetry. This master-disciple story shaped his image as a humble dervish, but no contemporary documents corroborate it against 13th-century records, so it can only be preserved as a layer of legend.
3. c. 1280–1320Sivrihisar–Eskişehir area · EskişehirPoems attributed to, or genuinely by, Yunus treat human-divine love, death, and equality in plain Turkish and were sung in the Anatolian countryside. He and Rumi of Konya belong to the same 13th-century Sufi literary current, but the sources do not confirm that the two ever met or cited one another.
4. c. 1320–1321Salıköy (Yunus Emre village) · EskişehirTradition places his death around 1320 or 1321. Because his poems circulated mainly orally, early manuscripts are both late and heterogeneous, and his life cannot be chronologized as a court poet's could. His historical significance lies in writing Sufi themes into popular Turkish rather than in leaving a datable original collection.