Many versions of the song can be found in countries neighboring Turkey, usually with entirely different lyrics. A documentary film entitled Whose is this song?[4] and an international youth project called Everybody's Song[5] documented many of these versions.
Serbian adaptation is called "Ruse kose curo imaš" ("Red-haired girl"), traditionally sung in southeastern Serbian dialect.
The Bosnian adaptation of the song is a traditional Sevdalinka known as "Anadolka".
The melody was first recorded in the USA as "Der Terk in America" in 1924 by klezmer clarinetist Naftule Brandwein.[6] With lyrics, and incorporating an English adaptation by Stella Lee, the song was recorded in the USA as "Uska Dara" in 1953 by Eydie Gormé[7] and Eartha Kitt.[8] Boney M's "Rasputin" features a melody similar to the tune,[9] which is also found in Serbian ("Ај, русе косе цуро имаш"). The tune appears in the film Ali Baba Bujang Lapok as "Alangkah Indah di Waktu Pagi (A Beautiful Morning)." Loreena McKennitt's studio album An Ancient Muse (2006) has a track named "Sacred Shabbat", which has the same tune as "Katibim".[10]
An Albanian version is titled "Mu në bashtën tënde".
A Turkish-Urdu mash-up version titled "Ishq Kinara - Üsküdar'a Gider Iken" was performed on the Pakistani television program Coke Studio by Sumru Ağıryürüyen and Zoe Vicajji in 2013.[11]
A Bengali adaptation of this tune known as "tri-bhuboner priyo Muhammad"[12][13] and "Shukno patar nupur paye"[14][15][16] in 1950s was composed by the Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, who is also considered as the national poet of Bangladesh. It is thought that he learned the melody while he was fighting in the Middle East during World War I.
Jamaican artist Ken Boothe recorded the song as "Artibella".
A traditional folk song in the Arab world with the same melody is known as "Ya Banat Iskandaria" (Arabic: "يا بنات اسكندريّة") meaning "Oh Girls of Alexandria".[17] Another Arabic version of the Levantine folklore, mostly sung as part of the Aleppine genre, is "Ghazali Ghazali" (Arabic:"غزالي غزالي") meaning "My Gazelle".[18]
There is also a Romanian version of the song called "De ai ști, suflețelul meu" translated as "If you knew, my soul".
The melody is shared by طالما أشكو غراني talama ashku gharani, a poem for Prophet Muhammad and is similar to the Hebrew piyut Yigdal.
Sami Yousuf's 'Araftul Hawa is also based on a similar tune.
The third movement of Fazil Say's violin concerto "1001 Nights in the Harem" heavily quotes the tune.
