The mélédé would burn and Ramadan would begin

Allay seylok iyéé tine xamçerxiyéé

(May God make your work succeed. Give us 25 kuruş)

It was a time when the city had not yet become a metropolis, when it had not been occupied by the arrogance, crowds and noise of technology. The running about and shouting of the neighborhood's children, of an age between childhood and youth, who enlivened the surroundings with the excitement of having taken on together a job that concerned the whole neighborhood, was at that moment the most important event in every corner of the city. Two people, with a crowd of neighborhood children behind them, each holding one end of a long pole, block the way of a passing adult and ask for money to buy wood for the great fire (mélédé) to be lit on the eve of Ramadan. Ostensibly they do this by blocking the road, but not through bullying. Those whose way is blocked are, in any case, ready for it as though joining a game, and again no one is obliged to give that twenty-five kuruş they ask for. If one is willing to risk being shouted after with "Cebinde yoktur bir Mırkah" ("You don't have a single mırkah in your pocket"), one can be stingy and avoid giving it (the word "mırkah," which in Siirt Arabic is used at some point without its meaning being known or questioned, originally comes from "mangır" and names the smallest copper unit of currency used in Ottoman times). There is no compulsion in religion, and there is no obligation at all to donate for the mélédé either. Your stinginess merely gets talked about a little in society, that is all.

When they saw someone passing in the street, the chorus of all the children shouting "Allay seylok iyéé tine xamçerxiyéé" was the first herald of the arrival of the month of Ramadan; of course Ramadan did not approach silently amid today's cares of life. News of it and the sound of its footsteps arrived long beforehand, and preparations to welcome it were made accordingly everywhere and at every stage. This organization, begun by the young people 15-20 days earlier, prepared the whole city for Ramadan as a great event awaited long in advance. Because organizations for the mélédé were held in the neighborhoods throughout the city, and thus from 15-20 days before, the whole city prepared to experience the start that would take place on the eve of Ramadan, the reunion with Ramadan, as a great feast in which the whole city took part.

Mélédé was the name of the great fire lit with the evening prayer before the first Ramadan. Whether its name came from milad or from mawlid is not known. It was certainly related to birth, to beginning, since the letters m, l and d were all in the word, but still I think the etymological meaning of the word was not of much importance. Its known meaning was that it was a fire announcing that Ramadan had begun, and that fire was a great ceremony, ritual, proclamation and threshold of entry into Ramadan. In every neighborhood, Ramadan began when the wood and brushwood collected after the 15-20 days of preparation by the neighborhood youth were lit at the proper time. It did not come silently, that is; it came announced, with festivities, with games that children prepared with great care and in which elders took part with great seriousness. When that eve evening arrived, although the organization belonged to the youth, the whole neighborhood would gather around the tower of brushwood, built by being arranged with architectural care to the highest point possible, and wait with great eagerness for the flames to reach the highest point possible. The height of the fire was a reason for pride and boasting toward the neighboring neighborhoods, but it was not, of course, a matter of cutthroat rivalry. Because vertical architecture was not so developed in the city, in these times when houses were one or at most two stories, the flames of other neighborhoods could also be noticed from the roofs. When the flames diminished and dropped to a certain level, another stage began for the young: the game of jumping over the fire. It was an occasion requiring courage, and so a chance for the bold to show themselves. When the fire has died down thoroughly it is of course easy to jump; at that stage everyone somehow tries their luck. What really made hearts leap into mouths were the attempts to jump over it while the flames were still alive. Did accidents happen? Probably they did, but in this event I witnessed for years I do not remember any noteworthy incident. When the fire had died down thoroughly toward the night prayer, people would go to the mosque to perform the first tarawih.

Thus the entry into the month of Ramadan would be marked and congratulated with a great ceremony, like entering a new time, a new climate, a new world. I do not know of any other place in Turkey where Ramadan was entered in this way by lighting a fire. Why was it done like this in Siirt, where did this tradition come from, why was this beginning made with fire? Frankly, a subject worth dwelling on. It is natural for Islam everywhere in the world to develop certain forms peculiar to itself with the folklore and culture of the place.

For the moment I have no finding on this. Fire and Ramadan. Why?

Veteran Siirt journalist Ayhan Mergen says that it is partly a matter of the smoke from the lit fire informing the surrounding villages that Ramadan had begun. But considering that the preparations beginning days beforehand had been decided in advance, with the construction of the fire tower beginning from noon of that day, this is an explanation that needs other explanations. Perhaps this tradition too has undergone a change within itself. Perhaps in the past, even if the mélédé preparation was made beforehand, its lighting was hastily arranged according to the sighting of the crescent; perhaps it was built taking the possibilities into account, and if the crescent was not sighted that day, it was kept waiting until the next day. It is probable, but we also have this information: until the sixties, in Siirt the day of Ramadan was decided not by calendar but by sighting of the crescent, and this decision was given according to the determination made by Siirt's reputable hodjas and then announced to everyone. In this case the mélédé can be regarded as an event that, beyond being a youth entertainment that also contained some ceremony, also had a communication function.

In the past, the mélédé would be burning around this evening today, to mark the difference between Ramadan and not-Ramadan, to mark the boundary with fire and make the transition felt with its warmth. May your Ramadan be blessed; tomorrow, God willing, let us continue telling what remained of the mélédé.