The Ottoman-Kurdish treaty

The contract between Idrisi Bidlisi, the Ottoman court, and Kurdish rulers may be well known. The raw content of the treaty is rarely presented, though, so here it is. 

Ottoman documents: 

There are nine hükümets, which were given under administration and property of their holders in return for their service and obedience. They govern (their districts) by way of free-holding. Moreover, their countries are set aside from the pen and cut off from the foot. All of their revenues were not included in the sultanic register. There is no one person from the Ottoman governors and servants of the Sultan within these areas. Everything belongs to them. And, in accordance with their charters (given by Ottoman sultans, regarding their rights and privileges) they are not subjected to dismissal and appointment. However, all of them are obedient to the orders of the Sultan. As other Ottoman district governors, they attend to campaigns together with the province-governors of whichever province they are subjected to. They own people and tribes as well as other soldiers.

 

[Kanuni Sultan Süleyman] gives to the Kurdish beys who, in his father Yavuz Sultan Selim's times, took position against the Kızılbaş and who are currently serving the State with faith... both as a reward for their loyalty and courage, their applications and requests being taken into consideration, the provinces and fortresses that have been controlled by each of them as their yurtluk and ocaklık since past times... under the condition of inheritance from father to son... as their estate.... In case of a bey's death, his province shall be given, as a whole, to his son, if there is only one.... If the bey has no heir or relative, then his province shall not be given to anybody from outside. As a result of consultation with the Kurdistan beys, the region shall be given to either beys or beyzades suggested by the Kurdistan beys.

Ali Efendi, a 17th-century Ottoman in the court, elaborates on the various administrative groups of Kurdish leaders. Some districts were under Ottoman 'direct administration', while others, the governments, enjoyed independent administration.

Ali Efendi (17th-century): 

When their [yurtluk and ocaklık] governers die, these districts are given to their sons, not to outsiders. However, their revenues are registered like ordinary sanjaks; there are timar and zeamets within them... But the hükümets have not been surveyed. Their rulers keep and govern them through freeholding. They are "set aside from the pen and cut off from the foot" and all their revenues, whatever they might be, belong to them.

A Christian convert from the house of Mihran

A Syriac work recounts the life of a Christian convert belonging to the Parthian house of Mihran. One particularly interesting feature of the account is the way in which members of the family are distributed across the Shahrazur region.

Gushnazdad was born in what is now the province of Krmashan. His father, as one might expect, had travelled some distance from his place of origin. The lands that later Arabic geographers came to call “the Mountains” formed part of the wider territory in which the house of Mihran had established itself by the late Sasanian period.

The earliest Arabic sources to explicitly associate the house of Mihran with the designation “Kurd” may, on closer inspection, tell us rather more than the conventional interpretation allows. They need not be understood as referring simply to a nomadic people, but quite the opposite. 

The usage of Kurdistan as territorial unit in the 14th-century

Hamdallah Mustawfi, the 14th-century Ilkhanate historian, gives some interesting facts about the Buyids' internal affairs. Majd al-Dawla attempted to seize the throne from his mother, Sayyida Shirin. Shirin escapes to Kurdistan and returns later to surprise her son: 

In A. H. 388 Qábús b. Washmgír returned from Khurásán and recaptured Gurgán and Tabaristán. After protracted fighting he makes peace with Majdu'd-Dawla on condition that these two provinces and Mázandarán shall be ceded to him. Qábús subsequently takes Gílán, and gives it to his son Minúchihr. Qábús reigned 15 years after his return. Then his army mutinied, made his son Minúchihr king, and put him in prison, where he shortly afterwards died. Minú-chihr makes peace with Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (who gives him his daughter in marriage), and recognizes him as his overlord and suzerain. He puts to death his father's murderers. Majdu'd-Dawla, having reached years of discretion, desires to recover the powers assumed by his mother. She flees to Badr b. Hasanawayh the Amír of Kurdistán. He helps her to defeat Majdu'd-Dawla, captures Ray, takes prisoner Majdu'd-Dawla and his wazir Abú ‘Alí, and restores Sayyida, who richly rewards him and sends him back to Kurdistán.

Mustawfi was a bureaucrat. The use of "Kurdistan" as a territorial unit must be understood in terms of its bureaucratic purpose. This type of categorization was ultimately disastrous. Boris James' map illustrates the restriction it created. 

It is analogous to the repercussions of the division of provinces in modern-day Iran. The establishment of a province called "Kurdistan" in modern-day Iran is not without implications, which are inherent in the division. Historically and currently, it signified the demise of the kurd label. The Mongol and Turkish invasions played a key role in the fall of the Kurd-label throughout wide territory over time, both in terms of its existence and growth. 

A Kurd, a Persian and a Spaniard in Dante's first circle of hell

In Dante's first circle of hell, commonly known as limbo, specific individuals are showered with adoration. Despite their non-Christian backgrounds, they were given a location where they would not be subjected to physical pain. 

Dante's inferno (14th-century): 

"Let us descend into the sightless world,"
began the poet (his face was deathly pale): "I will go first, and you will follow me."
And I, aware of his changed color, said:
"But how can I go on if you are frightened? You are my constant strength when I lose heart."
And he to me: "The anguish of the souls that are down here paints my face with pity-which you have wrongly taken to be fear.
Let us go, the long road urges us."
He entered then, leading the way for me down to the first circle of the abyss.
Down there, to judge only by what I heard, there were no wails but just the sounds of sighs rising and trembling through the timeless air,
the sounds of sighs of untormented grief burdening these groups, diverse and teeming, made up of men and women and of infants.
Then the good master said, "You do not ask what sort of souls are these you see around you. Now you should know before we go on farther,
they have not sinned. But their great worth alone was not enough, for they did not know Baptism, which is the gateway to the faith you follow,
and if they came before the birth of Christ, they did not worship God the way one should; I myself am a member of this group.
For this defect, and for no other guilt, we here are lost. In this alone we suffer: cut off from hope, we live on in desire."
The words I heard weighed heavy on my heart; to think that souls as virtuous as these were suspended in that limbo, and forever!
"Tell me, my teacher, tell me, O my master," I began (wishing to have confirmed by him the teachings of unerring Christian doctrine),
"did any ever leave here, through his merit or with another's help, and go to bliss?" And he, who understood my hidden question,
answered: "I was a novice in this place when I saw a mighty lord descend to us who wore the sign of victory as his crown.
He took from us the shade of our first parent, of Abel, his good son, of Noah, too, and of obedient Moses, who made the laws;
Abram, the Patriarch, David the King, Israel with his father and his children, with Rachel, whom he worked so hard to win;
and many more he chose for blessedness; and you should know, before these souls were taken, no human soul had ever reached salvation."
We did not stop our journey while he spoke, but continued on our way along the woods-I say the woods, for souls were thick as trees.
We had not gone too far from where I woke when I made out a fire up ahead, a hemisphere of light that lit the dark.
We were still at some distance from that place, but close enough for me vaguely to see that honorable souls possessed that spot.
"O glory of the sciences and arts, who are these souls enjoying special honor, dwelling apart from all the others here?"
And he to me: "The honored name they bear that still resounds above in your own world wins Heaven's favor for them in this place."
And as he spoke I heard a voice announce: "Now let us honor our illustrious poet, his shade that left is now returned to us."
And when the voice was silent and all was quiet I saw four mighty shades approaching us, their faces showing neither joy nor sorrow.
Then my good master started to explain: "Observe the one who comes with sword in hand, leading the three as if he were their master.
It is the shade of Homer, sovereign poet, and coming second, Horace, the satirist; Ovid is the third, and last comes Lucan.
Since they all share one name with me, the name you heard resounding in that single voice, they honor me and do well doing so."
So I saw gathered there the noble school of the master singer of sublimest verse, who soars above all others like the eagle.
And after they had talked awhile together, they turned and with a gesture welcomed me, and at that sign I saw my master smile.
Greater honor still they deigned to grant me: they welcomed me as one of their own group, so that I numbered sixth among such minds.
We walked together toward the shining light, discussing things that here are best kept silent, as there they were most fitting for discussion.
We reached the boundaries of a splendid castle that seven times was circled by high walls defended by a sweetly flowing stream.
We walked right over it as on hard ground; through seven gates I passed with those wise spirits, and then we reached a meadow fresh in bloom.
There people were whose eyes were calm and grave, whose bearing told of great authority; seldom they spoke and always quietly.
Then moving to one side we reached a place spread out and luminous, higher than before, allowing us to view all who were there.
And right before us on the lustrous green the mighty shades were pointed out to me (my heart felt glory when I looked at them).
There was Electra standing with a group, among whom I saw Hector and Aeneas, and Caesar, falcon-eyed and fully armed.
I saw Camilla and Penthesilea; across the way I saw the Latian King, with Lavinia, his daughter, by his side.
I saw the Brutus who drove out the Tarquin; Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia; off, by himself, I noticed Saladin,
and when I raised my eyes a little higher I saw the master sage of those who know, sitting with his philosophic family.
All gaze at him, all pay their homage to him; and there I saw both Socrates and Plato, each closer to his side than any other;
Democritus, who said the world was chance, Diogenes, Thales, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Zeno, and Heraclitus;
I saw the one who classified our herbs: Dioscorides I mean. And I saw Orpheus, Tully, Linus, Seneca the moralist,
Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and Averroës, who made the Commentary.

Much can be said about Dante’s Inferno and the figures he chose to place within it. Yet one aspect seems to me particularly worthy of attention: the idea of universal appeal. In the text, we encounter men whose virtues are acknowledged by a writer belonging to an entirely different culture. How does such recognition come about, and what does it tell us?

Perhaps the answer is that a person truly worthy of remembrance cannot remain confined to the narrow boundaries of his own people. His reputation must be capable of travelling beyond the loyalties of tribe, nation and creed. He must possess something that even those who do not share his identity, or his convictions, can recognise and admire. Such a legacy has passed a certain test of time and distance.

It is therefore worth being wary of reputations that exist only within the circles of those who already share one's loyalties. When a man is praised exclusively by his own people, one may reasonably doubt their greatness. 

Further reading on the text

Traditional kurdish headwear: kleta

Auguste Wahlen's nineteenth-century illustrations of Kurdish traditional dress feature a distinctive headpiece that is not seen today. Many Kurds are familiar with these images, yet no commentaries are given regarding this unusual headwear. The Kurdish warrior depicted on the left wears an archaic form of the kleta, designed to cover and protect the ears from harsh winter weather. Its presence offers a glimpse into older forms of Kurdish dress that have largely disappeared from living memory.

Guillaume Antoine saw Kurds wearing kleta while traveling through Eastern Kurdistan and Iran in 1801. A typical Persian men's outfit is shown next to the Kurd to highlight the differences in custom:

The Kurdish literati of the Zengid realm

Although several Kurdish military commanders held high-ranking positions under the Zengids, their influence in military affairs never quite matched that of their Turkic counterparts. To find the strongest Kurdish presence in the Zengid realm, however, one must turn from the battlefield to the administration, and more broadly to the men of the pen.

The passage that follows is taken from Ibn al-Athir. It is particularly revealing, not least because it accords with what other sources tell us about the Zengid realm. Under both the Seljuqs and, later, the Zengids, the conquest did not bring about any wholesale replacement of the established administrative elite. The new rulers had little choice but to rely on the local men who possessed the learning, experience and practical knowledge required to govern.

Such men were often rewarded handsomely for their services. Their compensation might include estates, money, the administration of institutions, and the right to appoint their own relatives and associates to positions of authority. Ibn al-Athir draws particular attention to Kamal al-Din, a Kurdish chief judge, whose circle consisted largely of his sons and fellow Kurds. Syria was the notable exception to this broader pattern of Kurdish representation among the Zengid literati. It was only under the Ayyubids that Kurds came to occupy such a dominant position in the region's learned and administrative circles.

Ibn al Athir (13th-century): 

The diwan [court of administration] of Zengi matches the diwans of the Seljuq sultans due to its sophistication, efficiency, number of staff and wealth. When a person comes to his court, he does not feel a foreigner. If he were a soldier joining his service, the Zengid soldiers would welcome him and accommodate all his needs due to the wealth of the diwan. If he was a civilian, who came for a certain task, he would be met by officials who would look into his request as if he were among his own family. If that comer were a scholar, he would be directed to the tents of chief qadi, al-Shahrazuri who, with his sons and his group, look after the judicial system of the lands. They would graciously welcome him and make him feel like one of them.

The reason for all his successes was that Zengi used to hire only highly talented and skilful men, who were willing to work limitlessly. In return, he rewarded all of them generously, so they offered their best. He never changed one of his high advisors or assistants from the time he governed Mosul until he was killed, unless there was a mistake committed and a change was due. All his commanders were in his service most of his career, unless they were killed in battle. This is why they sacrificed themselves for him.

Shaykh Raza Talabani's diwan

 1.

I know the verdict. By God, it will kill me: the lover’s affliction.

Come, please, for the love of God, release my collar, physician.

Come, that I may lay my hand on your crystalline breast until flat jealousy blisters the stalker’s belly.

My face is jinxed. I fear the pain of separation will end me, that no day in the country of union is allotted me.

Those tempting eyes of yours -- enchantresses, witches:

a glance, a wink, and they turn an anchorite of a hundred years.

With you, being’s relief, far from the heart, that son of sorrow, it is east and west between enduring and the trial.

Without the pit, there is no pinnacle, that’s for sure, but on the path to your love, I’ve seen nothing, by God, but the pit.

A wisp of hair from your head is a shackle.

Vial, fragrance, adornment are tangled in your beauty.

A Sheikh, if his eyes fall on your hair, would change his robe and prayer beads for the gartel, crucifix, cross.

Bereft, my ration is rationed. I am without remedy.

Have mercy on Raza. It’s virtuous to be merciful to strangers.

Ahmad Muxtar Jaff's diwan

 1.

Ahmad Muxtar was arrested while attempting to pass through the realm of Mahmud Barzanji. At the time, relations between the Kurdish movement and the ruling Jaff family of Halabja were strained. 

Muxtar appears to have understood exactly how to appeal to Mahmud. He frames his request for freedom not as a protest, but as an affirmation of loyalty to the Kurdish struggle and a celebration of the ruler’s virtues. The petition is carefully crafted to resonate both politically and emotionally, blending devotion, humility, and shared political sentiment. Barzanji responded quickly and released him upon receiving the letter and its accompanying poem: 

O gentle wind, carry all that is honest within me and place it in the service of the king whose dominion extends over all Sulaymani.

May I be sacrificed for you, O Saladin Ayyubi! Strong of hand as Haydar, handsome as Joseph.

Praise and thanks be to God, who delivered us from the hands of the unbelievers through your hand, your sword, and your determination. O Lion of God!

O Lord, keep the evil eye from him. Protect him by Your grace, for the sake of the Master of the Messengers and through the spirit of the Shah of Gilan.

And now, after all these praises, I put a question to the sovereign of our age: What crime has Ahmad committed that he should be thrown into prison?

If it has been proved that he failed in your service, then forgive him. Your generosity is great, and you are the source of all benevolence. A ruler loses nothing by showing mercy.

But if no crime has been committed, why should your humble servant remain behind bars?

Alone in his confinement, he reflects upon the conduct of men and the duties they owe one another.

If Your Excellency requires a guarantor, let my estate stand as security, a hundred times over. I pledge it in honour and in faith.

Until his dying day, he shall remain in the service of the King of Kurdistan. He will give his life for every command and every decree.

I consider this imprisonment an honour, provided that it serves the dignity of the Kurds. What is the suffering of one man beside the honour of a people?

I am your servant. May your favour never cease.

By your incomparable and sacred person, by the light of Ahmad, the Chosen Messenger, I swear by every verse of the Qur’an: have mercy upon this servant of yours.

Do not look upon his faults, his mistakes, or his forgetfulness. A man is not without failings, and even the most faithful servant may stumble.

Muxtar has nothing left but your mercy. No other plea remains to him.

His friends have been unable to help him. His kinsmen have failed him, and those he loves have not come to his aid. He stands alone. All that remains is to appeal to the generosity of the king.

(parts of the original poem are recited here)

Shaykh Mahmud Barzanji's diwan

1. 

Where is the Kurdish Kawa, O chosen one?

Fereydun stands in armor, ready for battle.

Fayaq Bekas' diwan

 1. 

This poem is close to my heart... because I know it by heart. We used to recite it at school when I was just five years old. I haven’t forgotten a single word of it since, and it remains a deeply pleasant poem, especially when recited aloud.

(God, nurture this land)

God, nurture this land

It clings to the heart, so sweetly 

These fine, colorful plains

(Its water, springs of Kausar. Its soil,

precious stones. Its flowers, rush broom.)

The spring picnics

The soft, beautiful grass

Stuns a hundred hearts 

(Its water, springs of Kausar. Its soil,

precious stones. Its flowers, rush broom.)

The high white mountains

Stand for the past 

A meadow, beautiful, and green

(Its water, springs of Kausar. Its soil,

precious stones. Its flowers, rush broom.)

This place is a place for the Kurds

A place for heroes and the brave

A den for the fearless lions

(Its water, springs of Kausar. Its soil,

precious stones. Its flowers, rush broom.)

The eyes of this land turn to us 

To lift it out of these grave times 

It’s a shame, to let it run to ruin 

(Its water, springs of Kausar. Its soil

precious stones. Its flowers, rush broom.)

Wafai's diwan

1.

The fall wind brushes my flowers and covers my vineyard.

My liver, like a nightingale, feels fall’s sorrow in a hundred places. When I saw the flower’s petals captured and taken by the wind, I fell, went crazy. Amazed, I lost my tongue.

Waxwings, come. Until we die together, let’s cry together. Your pure cedar is gone. My pure soul is gone. Nightingale, come. Until we have our souls back, let’s moan.

Your rose garden, my heart’s sorrow—both are gone. Oh, mineshaft of milk and sugar, oh, flower-thief, heart-thief, Oh, new flower on the flowering tree in the garden of my heaven,

No one knows the secret of that mouth, the love of that waistline. My tears shed all the heart’s secret speech. Such gossips. You are much sweeter than Leila, so I am this plain’s Majnun, this era’s Farhard.

My work is to moan over my injured heart. My labor is to cry over my heavy illness.

Your hair’s ends hold me captive to your neck.

I am the owl, yet I love morning. They say a smile or kiss of yours gives life. Until I die, I won’t know the secret of that miracle.

Your eyebrows forbid me the pleasure of your alluring glance. My Qibla is gone into the wine of the old, drunken magi.

She pleads, “The minute I come to you, my eyes, give me your soul.”

So, bartender, give me a cup, for I worry and will worry.

Your glances and grins, they came intending to plunder my brain, body, and heart.

She is a crowd of huntsmen and I a new spring. She hunts and hunts me, yet deaf and innocent.

Wafa’i’s wailing made mountains begin to speak and moan,

But not once did they affect you, my sighs and shouts.

---

2.

From my head to my toes, I cried out, burning, and my beloved didn’t come.

I blackened my eyes with the dust from her path, and my being’s comfort didn’t come.

Her line and mark is a meadow, but I can’t see the colors of my careless beauty.

The Queen of my hopelessness, with her fine hair and pale brown face, didn’t come.

I cried booming like spring clouds, but the laughter of that flower, that tussled hair, didn’t come.

Because my flower has no mercy, bloody eyes drown the Pleiades.

I am hushed, I keen. Why didn't my full moon come?

Her hair, a circling zunnar, became my mihrab.

The striking Turkish infidel, my beloved non-Muslim didn’t come.

I became a crazy, thirsty lip, bewildered in shadows of grief.

The heart-thief in her broad heights, my animals’ water, didn’t come.

The Ka’aba of my soul, my beloved, I’m amazed: still she hasn’t appeared.

The Qibla of my prayers, the physician for my mysterious illness, didn’t come.

I moan like a ney, I mourn like a disciple of the nightingale’s order.

The queen of the flower’s sugared lips and wind-blown hair didn’t come.

I did not see my flower’s desirous smile. The bud of my heart became bloody.

My insides and outsides burned. The voice of my spring lightning didn’t come.

However much I cried from love’s desire, my head was never empty.

I drowned in storms and still the relief for my burns didn’t come.

Like Wafa’i, how much should I cry and mourn and say,

“From my head to my toes, I cried out, burning, and my beloved didn’t come”?

Sherko Bekas' diwan

 1. 

Sherko Bekas was in the habit of reciting his own poetry, and this particular poem survives in a recording of his own voice.

(Answer)

After Halabja suffocated

I wrote a long complaint to God

In front of everyone

I read it to a tree 

The tree wept. 

On one side, a bird, a postman,

said, "Ok, who will deliver it? 

if you're looking to me I can't reach God's throne." 

Late that night my angelic poem, dressed for mourning, said, 

"Don't worry, I will take it to the heights of the atmosphere.

But I can't promise He will receive the letter Himself.

You know the Great God 

Who can see Him?" 

I said, "Thank you. Fly." 

My angelic inspiration flew

with my complaint. 

The next day, it was returned. 

God's fourth secretary down, 

by the name of Obaid, at the bottom

of the very same complaint, 

had written to me in Arabic: 

"Idiot, make it Arabic. 

No one here knows Kurdish. 

No one will take that to God."

2. 

(Women)

You are not one day 

but the whole year!

You are not 

one word, one book, one lamp, one painting or one drawing 

If you are absent for one minute,

the clock's heart will stop,

the house will go blind,

the infant grass will die,

the street will weep,

the birds will mourn,

the poem itself will collapse.

You alone are wind and rain

The boiling blood of summer, 

the dark hair of autumn evenings,

a flake of love's snow.

If not you,

who?

You are life...

Goran's diwan

1. (Dervish Abdulla)

With sallow cast hand and faint shimshal,

dervish I waited on a basta

brimming with grief and mourning.

 

Looking at you,

I saw a monument to a backbreaking age

Your fate,

the nest of the nightingale's sorrow

Yes, it's clear:

simple nations value those who create

like the moon's reflection

in a muddy pool,

but wise nations give

the comfortable throne and great crown

to one like you

who has mastered the shimshal's every opening,

who makes dawn weep

and speak with magical, mythical melody

Brother dervish!

I know you wander,

homeless,

for your living,

that desperation drives you

to beg a bite from scoundrels,

that with your death,

your snarling ney,

you suffocate the amateur's ears,

but what can we do

about the black luck of some luminaries

who,

like wind-caught seeds

must flower on hard stone:

If the universe

hadn't tied your life to this time,

God knows

which throne your hem might brush up against

You didn't study in a school,

not one letter,

no master took your hand.

Your own genius taught you

your shimshal,

every song's rhythm,

elongated and staccato,

your artistic fingertips,

your skill

captured each one.

I've heard so much music

that clamors of foreign souls

my Kurdish constitution has crumbled.

Dervish Abdulla,

I beg you

for a lawk,

ai ai,

or heyran,

for our national sense

to wash through

my muted, bleak psyche

like a wave.

By God,

you soothe my soul

more than Beethoven,

So, Dervish,

please,

help my hapless soul.

Mahwi's diwan

1

When you are absent from my eyes, what do you miss?

You fill my eyes to the brim. I am absent from myself.
You speak only to scold. If your lips begin, anyone
Who talks back will find their tongue absent.

Blood and dirt, Kokan named Khosrau’s intention:
Witness this disaster. Alert the absent.

My thoughts don’t leave you though yours have left me.

So long as you are with me: enough. Let me be absent.

He is the day and I am the night, still, Hafiz says, Mahwi,

If you desire His constant presence, never be absent.

---

2

Love’s hermitage is my republic. I won’t leave
Even if it burns. I’m just a handful of kindling.

Prayer didn’t touch her, so I became the dirt under her feet.
I reject the Order of Isolation. I choose the road.

I sought justice, I protested. A gnostic, rough, she
Said, “Tomorrow is Eid. Your blood will henna my feet.”

I abandoned prayer’s red face.
I live in shame’s yellow face.

The Gardner named me “apple,” but I fruit quince.

Lose the self, become bound, measure mud, burn:

Love has so much work to do. I stand in line.

What grace: she lights me on fire. She calls me sheikh.

She calls it ash, straw, this cane I hold in my hands.

With a wink’s blade, she cut my chest open.

She threw a little water at this dry hothouse.

In return for cold words, I sigh blazing breath.

He who throws a stone at me, I throw a storm at him.

Thank God, Mahwi is aware: the world is a cesspool.

When people get drunk, why should I seize on the trespass?

---

3

Those enthroned today, surrounded by ululating creatures,
Will be corpses tomorrow, surrounded by shrieking creatures.

Tomorrow will cut and cut them down. Had they faith,
They would not be so eager for this world, these creatures.

The antichrist takes shape in the thought of knowledge’s people.
Some follow it in herds, these creatures.

The full world is so tempting for an Iblis like Iblis.

He shelters in sly whispers and holds sway over creatures.

Your curtained face riots with a hundred doomsdays.

For once, take the veil off. See the earthquake of creatures.

We thought this life was water, but it was only mirage.

All drown though they swim in drought, these creatures.

In the market universe, everyone’s shop hours last his lifetime.

Jewels for shit, Mahwi, this is the behavior of creatures.

---

4

If I can’t see worship’s tyranny by wine’s light, what can I do?

If I can’t cure night with a candle like this, what can I do?

All that my heart has left in its warehouse is bitter melancholy.

With this cash, I bargain with love sickness. What else can I do?

The mullah’s hand and his beloved’s hair, a zunnar, don’t share a path.

So, a sheikh, I choose the Christian Order. What else can I do?

Before that beauty’s path, I made myself dust.

Still, she wouldn’t step on me.

So, I throw the whole world’s dust on my head. What else can I do?

For so long, the riotous city of love has gone dead silent.

If I can’t incite revolution by the law of madness, what else can I do?

My eyes have no more water to cry. I am prostrate at the doorstep.

My black year is dry. If I don’t pray for rain, what else can I do?

For you, I make the world my enemy. I bring my case against all.

If I don’t quit you, quit the world, what else can I do?

My loved ones abandoned me. I don’t fit. Death, hurry up!

If death doesn’t excuse me from this failure of life, what else can I do?

Oh, Mahwi, here is Leila who sets our date for Judgment Day.

Until that day arrives, I’ll sigh and shriek. What else can I do?

Haji Qadir Koye's diwan, 19th-century

1

World, you are an island in the ocean I cried.
It is no rumor: you are Zin and I am Mam.

No Adam, you have not fathered
An angel’s face, from Adam until now.

I am a sheikh. My head is a mountain, my breath
Is a breeze, my eyes a fountain, my turban, fog.

They say, “The beloved will come to my pillow.”
I know better. God knows even better.

The lip of Zuhak pleaded, “The snakes of my hair
When do they eat? Where is their ration, a piece of Jam’s head?”

Don’t say Sufis are liars and mullahs speak true.
They are the same, one is not more or less.

A truthful disciple and a dignified sheikh,
Their guards are lazy, their lovers unconcerned.

The great Constantinople is darkened:
Nobodies govern and darken literature.

With His order and law and system,
God made His own red a misery.

The two boys are opposites: life and death.
Each an example of his mother.

They don’t look like each other: the stalker and Haji Qadr.
God, humble him and make Haji holy.

Salim's diwan, 19th-century

1

In a field on the peak of your love, the heart’s hawk flew, circling.
Your beauty, flung like a lightning bolt, singed its feathers in flight.

At the poet’s competition, I saw on every side insight of the beloved.
Girded in artistry, they all arrived, the love hunters.

On one side, Nali and Mahwi; on the other, Salim and Kurdi.

All in the press, the heat of creation, calling on Mawlana.
They rode onto the field of rhetoric, each on an Arabian stallion,

In Kurdish, mounted on the horse of meaning, riding Baban land.

That Nali, an adventurer in print, agile in his way,
Took up his poet’s stick and knocked wisdom’s ball from the field.

That Rakhsh, by nature tough, schooled the wrestlers.

Salim and Mahwi circled to kiss that horse’s stirrup.

Melayê Cizîrî's diwan

Lines attributed to Melayê Cizîrî:

Wali Dewana's diwan (18th-century)

1. 

Pearl-expert lord,

Pearl-expert lord,

My lord,
my master of pearls,

My master of noble origin

Of pure roots,

Nezami-like [my] Ferdowsi of Tus,

Jami of Jam,

[bearer of Khaqani's imagination,

Anwari of our time,

Sa'di,
master mariner of eloquence,

Hafez of Shiraz,

Sa'eb the second

Unique master of no equal match,

Your likeness is rare in this ghoulish world.

Mehzuni's diwan

Verses by the Kurdish poet Mehzuni (1643-1701): 

1.

The mad waterfall

The wanton, maddened, lovesick waterfall

Sighing its song of desire,
scatters mountains of its pearls,

Its effervescence is like that of my beautiful sweetheart

Who, when she laughs,
brings forward the pearls (of her teeth).

It sings the theme of burning and longing

All day long,
all through the night.

Who knows,
for whose love,
he bears such anguish?

All true lovers share this condition

And in so doing,
ever seek their ideal

Mastoureh Ardalani's diwan (19th-century)

1.

My dear Khosrow,

Spring is here, how I wish it would not have come this year.

How I wish no flowers were grown in the garden,

No trees coming into blossom,

No nightingale in the meadow,

No dew on flowers.

I wish water lilies did not come up until Doomsday,

And no rosewater be produced.

How I wish violets, wallflowers, and hyacinths would never grow again;

How I wish tulips, lilies, yellow flowers, and basil would not grow
to remind me of my pain.

How I wish the troop of flowers were destroyed,

And poppies would grow yellow with aching heart.