Minstrel. Sufficient information about his life is
unavailable. His original name was Haydar. It is understood that he lived in
the 16th century. Based on the information gathered from his poems
and legends, his family is thought to have emigrated from Yemen and he was born
in Banaz Village in the Yıldızeli sub-province of Sivas. It is documented that
Pir Sultan Abdal lived during the reign of the Ottoman Kanuni Sultan Süleyman,
participated in an Alewi riot and was arrested and executed by Hızır Paşa in
Sivas.
Affiliated to the Shiite- Batinite faith, Abdal wrote his poems with the
theme of humanity and nature in a simple, pure Turkish even though the
influence of Divan* literature can rarely be seen in his poems. Tales about
Abdal as one of the foremost representatives of Alewi and Bektashi poetry are
told in various regions of Anatolia even today.